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azalinthegreat
2008-06-04, 07:02 AM
Hey, I was wondering if anyone out there had any interesting stories about near-death situations that you, or your friends, survived.

Just to clarify, I don't necessarily mean something that the DM set up to kill you. I'm more asking about a character who got in a bad situation, the player was just about to roll up a new character, when he pulled off some crazy move and survived somehow.

For example, I once had a paladin who was about to sacrifice himself to get by a group of ogre magi. He gave one of the ogres his axe and knelt down, completely willing to die. The ogre used a coup de grace on the paladin, smashed it into his neck, but I got a lucky fortitude save and the party rescued me pretty quickly. So, the paladin almost had his head chopped off and survived. From that point forward, he was called The Green Knight.

DigoDragon
2008-06-04, 07:42 AM
I remember a fight against a young adult blue dragon and 6 drow slaves. Our party was about 4th level and definitely out classed. However I took leadership position (I was playing an elf cleric of Tamara) and with some team work (and a few lucky rolls) we were winning the fight. The blue dragon was getting torqued off that he was losing minions.

Blue: "Surrender!"
Me: "What, you wish to surrender to us? Very well, we'll gladly accept!"
GM: "Do you actually say that?"
Me: "Yeah well he offered."

This obviously insulted the blue dragon and he dove at me, pinning me to the ground with only 3 hit points to my name. I was pretty sure next round I'd be dragon kibble so on my "last" turn I tried casting a spell (while pinned) called Balor's Nimbus (I think). Succeeded the Concentration check and the spell gave me an aura of fire, causing fire damage to anything in graple with me. Well I maxed out the damage dice and brought the young blue dragon to single digit hit points as well. He was about to bite my head off when he realized that all his drow slaves were defeated and he was surrounded by the remaining party, weapons drawn on him.

The dragon took a double move to make a hastey retreat :smallbiggrin:
And I lived to heal another day.

KillianHawkeye
2008-06-04, 08:01 AM
Inconceivable!! :smallwink:

SilverClawShift
2008-06-04, 08:16 AM
Shifter race, Binder class.

I allready posted my best "Holy crap, I'm alive?" story, so it's re-produced here in spoiler format.

To keep this from turning into a novel, I'll skim over the backstory about this situation the best I can.
- Around first level, early on in the game, my group (generally chaotic, and good, in various quantities) had to take a low level cleric of the Silver Flame hostage for various reasons I won't get into detail about here.
- We didn't mean this cleric any harm, and weren't planning on hurting him. We just needed a hostage that the authorities would be worried about being responsible for killing to cover our bases.
- The party went out for some business while I kept watch over the cleric. I was our Plan B, as the rest of the party could warn that their failing to return to our hideout, alone, would mean me slitting his throat. A bluff, but that was the plan.
- I'm alone with this sniveling tied up cleric for a good two days. During that time, I kept binding a vestige to keep my power level up and ready in case I found myself in an emergency.
So on three seperate occasions, this cleric of the silver flame sees me drawing an enigmatic seal, and verbally making a pact with a terrifying monstrosity from outside of reality to share my soul with it for 24 hours. He knows my name.

*******

Cut to 3 levels, and a number of months of adventuring later. We're all level 4, and becoming rather notorious. Our group goes by the general style that level 1 is an average person, level 2-3 is exceptionally skilled and noteworthy people, that level 4 is fantastically capable, and that level 5 is the equivalent of an olympic athlete or a noble prize winning scientist or some such. Above level 5 is superheroic to varying degrees.
So we're a bit infamous in some circles. We're not bad guys, but we're certainly not doing things by the book, off the beaten path, marching to the beat of our own drum-... you get it.
My group is trying to pass through a mid sized town without much fuss, maybe pick up some gear and refresh our supplies, and head out to our next destination under the radar.

Because it's relevant to the story at hand, I'll list some facts about me at this point.
- I have a vestige bound that grants 10 fire resistance
- I have a class feature that grants 5 fire resistance
- I have a cute little ring that gives me 10 fire resistance and my DM agrees that they all stack cause he's cool with stuff like that.
- The vestige I have bound brands a symbol into my palm as a sign of our pact (a temporary brand, but still).
- The vestige I have bound also gives me the ability to wreath myself in flames. The flames wouldn't hurt me, so the fire resistance doesn't matter, but it's still relevant info.
- I'm wearing a sort of low-key-but-still-elegant noble outfit, as the partys spokesperson I like to look presentable. My scruffy, scarred up, slightly pungent 'allies' probably look like mercernary bodyguards or something.

On to the story. Our party decides we could use some healing gear, and the logical place to hit up for something like that is the local temple. Which just happens to be dedicated to the Silver Flame. I'm fairly confident that my charisma will get me through this without hassle, and probably at a discount, despite being a shifter (and therefor a second class citizen in most places, especially to the silver flame).
I meet the guard in front of the temple and start smooth talking. I introduce us as a party of adventurers, and ask if we might purchase some healing potions to keep us in one peice if we encounter any trouble. The guard says he thinks he's hear of us.
I put on the charmed/elated act, thinking maybe he'll suck up to the bigshots. I introduce myself as >my name< (DANGER WILL ROBINSON) and reach out to shake his hand.
He asks, "THE >my name<???"
"No one but! :)"
He reaches out to shake my hand. Grabs my wrist. Looks at my palm. Accuses me of being a heretic heathen, declares me guilty on the spot, and tries to abduct me for a swift execution.

Oh boy.

The ensuing chaos was remarkable. This bumpkin town is immediately whipped into a frenzy, with people shrieking "Witch!", "Heretic!" ect. so a full on city street full of 1st level commoners, a handful of silver flame guards of undetermined class or level, and a few more higher level tempalrs coming out of the temple. All trying to abduct me.
In the frenzy, my group has managed to keep a low profile, and comes up with a fantastic idea. As I'm attempting an acrobatic escape/dodge/jackie chan style climbing running and sliding scene, the party rogue comes up, sneak attacks me with a blackjack to the back of the head, and knocks me out cold.
And they PRESENT ME TO THE GUARDS SAYING THEY CAPTURED ME.

THOSE RAT BASTARDS.

They get REWARDED for being the ones to bring me down, and I'm immediately tied to a post and a pyre is built. I wake up as they give a small speech about impurities in the world being cleansed with holy fire, and they light the bonfire. It flares up, and I am officially being burned at the stake for being a heathen.
While my party looks on with a sick shrug.

But wait. My story gets better.
The DM declares that the open flame, combined with my 25 fire resistance, isn't enough to actually do me any damage. The fires flare up, and my poofy noble clothes are now aflame.
The fire burns through the rope (met with open mouthed staring) before it actually hurts me, thanks to the fire resistance. I crawl down OVER the bonfire, looking for all the world like some japanese horror vision, while literally engulfed in natural flame. I activate my vestiges halo wreath of fire, doubling the intensity of the flame visually, and give my best feral roar while shifting (+2 strength yay) and strike out at the nearest person, a random guy standing in the street in terror. The Dm decides that no real dice roll is needed, as he's frozen in terror, and my clawed, flaming hand rakes most of his face off and drops him. Things near me are starting to combust, and I'm leaving scorching footprints.

The crowd scrambles like a cattle stampede. All but two of the silver flame templars turn tail and run, screaming into the evening. My 'friends' immediately do a double double cross, the rogue slits ones throat and they all beat the other one to death there in the street. While I stand there. On fire. Staring angrily.

They tried to play it off that they knew I was going to get out of the situation.

"We knew you'd be fine, we remembered you had all that fire resistance"
"no you didn't. You didn't know they would use fire. They could have cut my head off."
"Oh come on, they ALWAYS burn heretics at the stake..."
"..."
"We remembered the fire resistance!"
"No you didn't"
"...hmm."
"*stares angrily*"
"You know you're still on fire."
"I am aware."

ghost_warlock
2008-06-04, 08:58 AM
System: Alternity. Setting: StarWars (sort of).

Picture this: my character was a force-using dragon with a flying body tank. Not canon, but very freaking cool.

Unfortunately, I had taken an extreme Primitive flaw which meant that bows and arrows were about space-age technology for me. Yeeeaah...it was only a matter of time before I lost control of the body tank and crashed...on a high-gravity world...at top speed.

Fortunately, I just happened to land in a bog. The rest of the party, when they finally unearthed me, needed the Jaws of Life to get me out of the 'tank before the medics could do anything. Fortunately, it turns out that a body tank works surprisingly well as a body-cast in such a circumstance. :smalltongue:

In the end, I came away with an Old Injury flaw and my body tank was pretty much just scrap metal.

I think the GM had really been regretting letting me have that body tank anyway.

Chronicled
2008-06-04, 09:05 AM
Shifter race, Binder class.

I allready posted my best "Holy crap, I'm alive?" story, so it's re-produced here in spoiler format.

To keep this from turning into a novel, I'll skim over the backstory about this situation the best I can.
- Around first level, early on in the game, my group (generally chaotic, and good, in various quantities) had to take a low level cleric of the Silver Flame hostage for various reasons I won't get into detail about here.
- We didn't mean this cleric any harm, and weren't planning on hurting him. We just needed a hostage that the authorities would be worried about being responsible for killing to cover our bases.
- The party went out for some business while I kept watch over the cleric. I was our Plan B, as the rest of the party could warn that their failing to return to our hideout, alone, would mean me slitting his throat. A bluff, but that was the plan.
- I'm alone with this sniveling tied up cleric for a good two days. During that time, I kept binding a vestige to keep my power level up and ready in case I found myself in an emergency.
So on three seperate occasions, this cleric of the silver flame sees me drawing an enigmatic seal, and verbally making a pact with a terrifying monstrosity from outside of reality to share my soul with it for 24 hours. He knows my name.

*******

Cut to 3 levels, and a number of months of adventuring later. We're all level 4, and becoming rather notorious. Our group goes by the general style that level 1 is an average person, level 2-3 is exceptionally skilled and noteworthy people, that level 4 is fantastically capable, and that level 5 is the equivalent of an olympic athlete or a noble prize winning scientist or some such. Above level 5 is superheroic to varying degrees.
So we're a bit infamous in some circles. We're not bad guys, but we're certainly not doing things by the book, off the beaten path, marching to the beat of our own drum-... you get it.
My group is trying to pass through a mid sized town without much fuss, maybe pick up some gear and refresh our supplies, and head out to our next destination under the radar.

Because it's relevant to the story at hand, I'll list some facts about me at this point.
- I have a vestige bound that grants 10 fire resistance
- I have a class feature that grants 5 fire resistance
- I have a cute little ring that gives me 10 fire resistance and my DM agrees that they all stack cause he's cool with stuff like that.
- The vestige I have bound brands a symbol into my palm as a sign of our pact (a temporary brand, but still).
- The vestige I have bound also gives me the ability to wreath myself in flames. The flames wouldn't hurt me, so the fire resistance doesn't matter, but it's still relevant info.
- I'm wearing a sort of low-key-but-still-elegant noble outfit, as the partys spokesperson I like to look presentable. My scruffy, scarred up, slightly pungent 'allies' probably look like mercernary bodyguards or something.

On to the story. Our party decides we could use some healing gear, and the logical place to hit up for something like that is the local temple. Which just happens to be dedicated to the Silver Flame. I'm fairly confident that my charisma will get me through this without hassle, and probably at a discount, despite being a shifter (and therefor a second class citizen in most places, especially to the silver flame).
I meet the guard in front of the temple and start smooth talking. I introduce us as a party of adventurers, and ask if we might purchase some healing potions to keep us in one peice if we encounter any trouble. The guard says he thinks he's hear of us.
I put on the charmed/elated act, thinking maybe he'll suck up to the bigshots. I introduce myself as >my name< (DANGER WILL ROBINSON) and reach out to shake his hand.
He asks, "THE >my name<???"
"No one but! :)"
He reaches out to shake my hand. Grabs my wrist. Looks at my palm. Accuses me of being a heretic heathen, declares me guilty on the spot, and tries to abduct me for a swift execution.

Oh boy.

The ensuing chaos was remarkable. This bumpkin town is immediately whipped into a frenzy, with people shrieking "Witch!", "Heretic!" ect. so a full on city street full of 1st level commoners, a handful of silver flame guards of undetermined class or level, and a few more higher level tempalrs coming out of the temple. All trying to abduct me.
In the frenzy, my group has managed to keep a low profile, and comes up with a fantastic idea. As I'm attempting an acrobatic escape/dodge/jackie chan style climbing running and sliding scene, the party rogue comes up, sneak attacks me with a blackjack to the back of the head, and knocks me out cold.
And they PRESENT ME TO THE GUARDS SAYING THEY CAPTURED ME.

THOSE RAT BASTARDS.

They get REWARDED for being the ones to bring me down, and I'm immediately tied to a post and a pyre is built. I wake up as they give a small speech about impurities in the world being cleansed with holy fire, and they light the bonfire. It flares up, and I am officially being burned at the stake for being a heathen.
While my party looks on with a sick shrug.

But wait. My story gets better.
The DM declares that the open flame, combined with my 25 fire resistance, isn't enough to actually do me any damage. The fires flare up, and my poofy noble clothes are now aflame.
The fire burns through the rope (met with open mouthed staring) before it actually hurts me, thanks to the fire resistance. I crawl down OVER the bonfire, looking for all the world like some japanese horror vision, while literally engulfed in natural flame. I activate my vestiges halo wreath of fire, doubling the intensity of the flame visually, and give my best feral roar while shifting (+2 strength yay) and strike out at the nearest person, a random guy standing in the street in terror. The Dm decides that no real dice roll is needed, as he's frozen in terror, and my clawed, flaming hand rakes most of his face off and drops him. Things near me are starting to combust, and I'm leaving scorching footprints.

The crowd scrambles like a cattle stampede. All but two of the silver flame templars turn tail and run, screaming into the evening. My 'friends' immediately do a double double cross, the rogue slits ones throat and they all beat the other one to death there in the street. While I stand there. On fire. Staring angrily.

They tried to play it off that they knew I was going to get out of the situation.

"We knew you'd be fine, we remembered you had all that fire resistance"
"no you didn't. You didn't know they would use fire. They could have cut my head off."
"Oh come on, they ALWAYS burn heretics at the stake..."
"..."
"We remembered the fire resistance!"
"No you didn't"
"...hmm."
"*stares angrily*"
"You know you're still on fire."
"I am aware."

What I want is a post with links to all your cool stories :smalltongue:. I'd missed this one somehow, and it's great.

Voshkod
2008-06-04, 09:13 AM
System: Delta Green (modern day Call of Cthulhu). Situation: I'm the GM, the players are on a boat over an oceanic trench. They've just sent a cybernetic dolphin with a nuclear depth charge on a suicide run into the Deep One city far below (don't ask, far too much backstory to explain).

Boom. The ocean roils, boils, and suddenly a massive tentacle, hundreds of feet high, breaks the waves. The players on deck wisely abandon ship. One PC, who was below decks at the moon pool, getting ready to dive, doesn't know anything's wrong until the tentacle sweeps away the top of the ship. Now he can see the sky from four decks down, can see the giant tentacle getting ready to smash the ship to pieces.

"What do you do?," I ask.

A long pause. "I put in my rebreather."

Smash, down comes the tentacle.

An hour later, the survivors find the player, floating unconcious but alive, because he had been smart enough - or stunned enough - to put in his rebreather.

Xefas
2008-06-04, 09:34 AM
My players have infiltrated the frosty lair of a Mature Adult White Dragon hidden high up in the mountains. By "infiltrate", I mean they had the Rogue infiltrate it, and before he got back, they got bored and decided to kill every living thing in the entire cave complex. Chaotic Evil Arctic Troglodytes and what-not.

Anyway, the final confrontation with the dragon has the Cleric out of healing spells, followed by him getting walloped with a Full Attack directly to the face, dropping him to exactly 0 hit points. The other three players do their stuff, but the Cleric is the one who carries all the healing items, so they're kinda stuck in that regard.

The Cleric uses his one disabled action to cast CLW from a wand to get him back to 13hp (he rolled max). Now that he is no longer disabled, he uses a move action to flee the immediate vicinity of the dragon (who had used his AoO for the round on a different PC). The dragon leaps into the air and Crushes (as in the attack) the Cleric and the nearby Ranger. He rolls near-lowest, dealing exactly 13hp, bringing the Cleric back to 0 and disabled.

The following round, one of the Cleric's magic items kicks in, casting a Freedom of Movement spell on him automatically, getting him out of the Pin, and he casts CLW from the wand again, getting him back up to 10hp this time.

The dragon decides to use his breath weapon rather than continue to pin the Ranger, as he can simultaneously hit the Cleric, Rogue, and Scout all at the same time. The Cleric rolls a 19 on his reflex save (he needed a 19 or 20) and takes exactly 10 damage, dropping him to 0hp.

The next round, the Cleric wands himself back up into the positives again and moves farther away. The Dragon, more than a little annoyed at this point, decided to just Full Attack the Ranger, killing him instantly, and then leaves.

The funny thing is that we've never had anyone dropped to exactly 0hp before, or since. These were all 3 occurrences, bam, bam, bam, all in one session.

SamTheCleric
2008-06-04, 09:38 AM
Well, you see... I had this Living Greyhawk character named Viktor Greyseed. Viktor was a pretentionous elitist wizard of the highest order... his best friend (and i use that term loosely) was a cleric of Boccob. One day, we were attacked by these rediculous dire wolves with spell resistance (at like 4th level). EVERYONE was almost dead... Viktor, with a mighty sigh, moved up to the last dire wolf (who had yet to be touched) and proceeded to beat on it with his quarterstaff. The dire wolf crit him and took him to 3 hit points... but he faught on, not getting hit again and beat that dire wolf senseless.

From that point forward, his nickname... as given by the cleric of boccob... was Viktor the Invincible.

It later proved true when he was charged by not one... not two... not three... but FOUR fiendish girralons and they all missed. He moved back, cast on the defensive and fireballed them into oblivion.

ashmanonar
2008-06-04, 09:49 AM
Long stuff.


I've been dropped by Vampires several times now, on my poor half-orc (who has since been retired). Almost dropped by Shadows several times.

First time: We're trying to move around a city that's been captured by Bugbears and their undead "allies". (long story, they're pretty unwilling allies.)

We're ambushed by a Vampire (probably not a vampire lord, but a pretty powerful full-fledged one. I fail my will save.

He doesn't tell me to attack my friends, but rather to ATTACK THE BUGBEARS. My half-orc is a tribal enemy of goblinoids, so...

I go running off, to jump into combat at the city.

Our wonderful awesome Cleric of Pelor puts a Hold Person on me, so I'm stuck. I can't run, which is good.

I can't move. OH CRAP. Mr. Vampire decides to come over and take a few bites out of me.

I was at -6 after two hits (due to negative levels and hitpoint loss). If he crit, or just rolled higher...

The second I got dominated, I started rolling up a Spiked Chain tripper fighter to pass the time.

Occasion 2: We return to this city, after handling another vampire at a small town, by taking out more than 50 vampire spawn. Yea, wizards are that cheesy. After teleport-killing the Cleric of Nerull in command at the tower, we go down and begin peace talks between the Bugbears and Humans. On the way down the tower, I got dropped to 2 Strength by a couple of Shadows. o.o (If you didn't know, when a Shadow drops you to 0 Strength, you become one.)

After beginning peace talks, I got ambushed by a Vampire. Again.

Slam, Slam. Down to negatives. Again.

The group scry-teleported to me, found me (and a bunch of people) in carts being pulled by skeletons, while a few clerics of Nerull and a Lich watched.

They "killed" the Lich, while I got paralyzed by the lich's touch.

Yea, I retired that character.

Dyrvom
2008-06-04, 10:09 AM
Shifter race, Binder class.

I allready posted my best "Holy crap, I'm alive?" story, so it's re-produced here in spoiler format.



No offense, but that party was definitely not good. Neutral, probably. I mean, you killed a civilian whose only sin was being an ignorant commoner watching a public spectacle.

Burley
2008-06-04, 11:09 AM
My current character: Guy, the Human Druid//Ninja, banished warrior of the peaceful tribes, disgraced by an overpowered/underaged mage. (Backstory)

Guy and company are searching for a pirate hideout. We standing on a sandbar about 50ft from shore, which is actually a cliff face that we climbed down. We see a hole, and decide to investigate...tomorrow. (We're not stupid. We needed to prepare.)
While swimming back to the cliff-and-rope from the sandbar, wouldn'tcha know it, but we're attacked by a monstrous shark. HUZZAH! So, I ended up getting knocked to 0 hp a couple times, healing myself with my disabled action (this was the first time I'd ever seen 0hp, too). Finally, I get up the rope and to the top of the cliff. I look down and our cleric's legs have been practically stripped of flesh, and our meat-shield is trying to axe-hack and swim at the same time. (Maybe the other way around...)
So, I swan dive onto the shark, battle fans a blaze with everything working in my favor for my coveted Sudden Strike.
(I'd like to take this moment to say that I had maxed out my Jump check, cause...y'know...Ninja.)
I fail my jump check, horribly. Natural 1, which put me at an 8 or something. I headbonk the shark, dealing 1d4 falling damage to it, and 4d6 to me. 0hp again. I used my disabled action to stab a fan into it as deep as I can, since I'm tied to the fan. I'm now being dragged around by the shark.
The cleric, who is still alive somehow, heals me with a wonderful houserule that Cure spells work from 15ft away. I come up to about half hp. Then, the spellthief//shugenja took the gnome rogue//sorc's (new to the group that session) crossbow, leaving the gnome to...throw big rocks.
Guess what didn't hit the shark...The Big Rocks.
Guess what did hit me...The Big Rocks.
I ended up pulling my fan out of the shark to just run.
Guess what killed the shark... not the fan, actually. It was rounds later that we finally cut it up enough that it died.

I hate the ocean.

Ecalsneerg
2008-06-04, 11:32 AM
No offense, but that party was definitely not good. Neutral, probably. I mean, you killed a civilian whose only sin was being an ignorant commoner watching a public spectacle.

The Rule of Cool overrides your foolish logic!

Norsesmithy
2008-06-04, 11:40 AM
No offense, but that party was definitely not good. Neutral, probably. I mean, you killed a civilian whose only sin was being an ignorant commoner watching a public spectacle.

To be fair, since the spectacle was his own execution, that is a neutral action at worst.

Now if he had been randomly killing at a random public execution, that would be bad, but participating in public spectacles like that is hardly a good aligned action.

SilverClawShift
2008-06-04, 12:10 PM
No offense, but that party was definitely not good. Neutral, probably. I mean, you killed a civilian whose only sin was being an ignorant commoner watching a public spectacle.

I'm sorry? What was that?

I couldn't hear you over the sound of us saving the world at great personal cost. :smalltongue:


What I want is a post with links to all your cool stories :smalltongue:. I'd missed this one somehow, and it's great.

I don't have THAT many stories :smalltongue:

But since you're interested, here's the revenge I brought on their heads:

So I got my revenge tonight, and it was sweet and tasty.

One common trait of our games is that we leave a MOUNTAIN of notes after each session. We all carry a small notepad, and anything we need to discuss in private, we scribble on the notepad. Helps keeping out-of-character knowledge from becmoing an issue, because you didn't hear that information in the first place. The most common notes are between the DM and players, but if characters decide to head off to discuss something alone, we can actually plot without the DMs fore-knowledge of our plan. Makes things interesting.
And we recycle the massive amounts of paper we tear through, don't worry.
Anyway, the end result is that we don't really raise eyebrows when secret notes are being passed. It's a given, and it's not necessarily something sinister, just a roleplaying aide.

So my party (now level 5, the last level before we become engines of superheroic destruction), finds a relatively quiet out-of-the-way corner of the world to crash in for a few days and collect our bearings after some particularily BAD planning went south. We had a mini quest in the town helping out a gnome stage magician (this was NOT something I set up, the DM dropped it on us as randomly as anything else, I had no prior knowledge about it).
Then we planned on relaxing for the evening. While the party started a brawl in a bar for entertainment (really.) I headed out for a shopping excursion. Since this was all out-of-character stuff for the other players, it consisted of me and the DM passing notes about what I was hoping to accomplish, while he DMed a random bar fight.
As a side note, the vestige I had bound gave me a number of random abilities, one of which included being treated as a wizard of my level when it came to using spell trigger items like wands, so I could use em freely same as a 5th level wizard.

Now, what I did, and the DM approved readily, was find the gnomish stage magician we'd helped earlier, and talk to him about buying some of his stage magic stuff, which the gnome was fine with (he was a real spellcaster who just happened to use it in theatrics instead of adventuring, putting on a 'brilliant' show for entertainment purposes).
So I came back to my party with
- A number of wands that did various useless magical tricks
- A few pints of flammable oil

The local authorities (with a semi-southern sherrif twang, which was a ncie touch) were berrating my party for causing such a ruckus. He let them go with a slap on the wrist cause he could tell 'they didn't mean no real harm', along with a warning to keep their noses clean until they passed to the next town. My party sheepishly agreed that the fun was over, and we headed to a nearby inn for the night.
We were going to get seperate rooms, but I suggested we'd probably feel fine with crashing in a room together (we did it in dungeons and the wilderness anyway) and it'd keep our cost down, which in the long run could give us more cash for crucial gear, so my party agreed that we'd just rent a sizeable room and work out some sleeping arrangements there. We roleplayed it, arguing over who was gonna sleep where without letting it get too heated, with people arguing that they weren't sleeping on the floor until the party wizard reminded everyone (me included) that we all have bedrolls and blankets and sleeping gear in our packs, like always. Having a pillow makes sleeping on the floor more bearable, and we let the fighter (swashbuckler, actually) sleep in the bed cause all the extra physical stress was worse on the joints and back ect.

So the Dm tells us we all fall asleep while I'm handing him a note. The party starts describing waking up, and he gives us the always ominous "Oh no, wait." Which means he's being the devil.
Or in this case, that I'm being the devil.

And he starts making them roll listen checks over the swashbucklers snoring, which they fail, and are very freaked out about.

Especially when they realize, the DM didn't make ME roll a listen check.

The DM makes them roll a few more, which made me nervous, but none of them passed. They were starting to get nerve wracked, with the rogue actually grabbing his character sheet and yelling "WAKE UP MAN, WAKE UP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" but it was too late. I abandon the notes and say aloud to the dm "I splash the rest of the oil in the swashbucklers face".

Jaws drop.

DM: You wake up with a cough and a snort, immediately assaulted by the overpowering smell of violatile, COMBUSTIBLE chemicals.
Swashbuckler: I shout "What in the hells are you doing?!" loud enough to wake the party.
DM: Sure, I'll give you that. Everyone stirs, the smell of flammable oil permeating the room.
Me: I wave my crossbow pistol around and say "No no one move, or this is liable to get very messy very quickly" with a sweet smile.
DM: Nate roll a spot check (Nate's our wizard, and he passed the check). You notice the bolt loaded into the crossbow pistol is glowing faintly, a dull red tip that, even in your groggy state, realize is probably ripe with magical fire.
Nate: I say aloud "For the love of god no one move"
Swashbuckler: Screw that! Roll initiative, I jump out of bed at top speed and attack with my fists!
DM: Jump out of bed at top speed?
Swashbuckler: Yeah
DM: what's your Dex? *rolls a secret dice* take 5 bludgeoning damage from smashing your face into the wall of force over your bed
Swashbuckler: you've gotta be KIDDING me. Where the hell did THAT come from.
Me: Out of character (which we just say out loud) The gnome uses moveable walls of force to roll marbles over the tops of the audience
Swashbuckler: What the hell? what's that mean?
Me: I'll explain later. Back in character now though. I figured you'd be the one to try something like that. Aren't swashbucklers supposed to be INTELLIGENT?
Swashbuckler: Fine, back in character, what do you want from us?

So I went on to explain that I'd gotten some unique magical gear while they were all wasting their time peaking under waitresses skirts and smashing mugs of ale on random passers heads. I tell them that they're all allready under the effect of one of the spells. Which is controlled by me. And that if I decide, they will immediately take 1d2 points of fire damage any round I decide I'm unhappy with them. A weak effect... except that they are all soaked, along with the room, in torch oil.
I also tell them that, while they get will saves against the second effect, I can try to force any of them to freeze, or pick the direction they run in (which will be away from me, requiring them to close the distance if they want to attack, if they get a chance to).

Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"
DM: everyone flip a coin for damage, and then roll 1d6 for fire damage as the entire room flares up like the pits of hell themselves.
Rogue: Oh *EXPLETIVE* Oh *EXPLETIVE* THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
DM: No, it is, you're very much on fire.
Swashbuckler: I roll off the bed, avoiding the wall of force, and ATTACK.
Me: Not really.
Swash: huh?
DM: Roll a will save.
Swash: Oh you've gotta be *expletive* kidding me. *rolls and fails, by a wide margin*
Me: He runs out of the room
Swash: Runs out of the room screaming "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE"

The DM goes on to explain that everyone in the inn goes into panic mode as the flames spread out of our room and a group of random people run by FULLY engulfed in flame. Along with making them roll 1d6 for fire damage randomly (about once a round). All while I run behind them, laughing maniacally, making them run in random directions and freezing occasionally, while on fire, screaming "DANCE MY PUPPETS, BURN BURN BURN. BURN AND DANCE! HAHAHAHA"

Then I cast invisibility on myself and dissapear into the alleyway (we're outside at this point, along with the evacuated inn).

DM keeps making them roll 1d6s while they dance for me unable to put out the flames, and freezing anytime they try to stop drop and roll or go for something that might help. when the wizard is at about 1/5th of his hitpoint total, the DM gives them this.

DM: Suddenly, the illusory flames wink out of existance, and you're left standing, panting in terror, under the night sky. In your skivvies.
Rogue: WHAT?!?!?!
DM: Good question, I'm sure you'd be wondering what the hell that was about in character too. But there's no time for that, the local authorities show up, and immediately place you all under arrest, dragging your protesting forms into the night, saying he knew you were trouble and that he shoulda locked you up after the barfight.

Jaws still dropped.

Me: I watch and wait while everyone tries to figure out what happened, until the crowd starts shuffling nervously back into the inn or leaving as warranted, and sneak back to my room, locking the door and curling up in the bed.

I slept soundly (though the room did still smell of oil) and got up bright and early to wait by the jailhouse for my party.

The local lawman and his goons escorted them to the front, and told them he wanted them out of town by nightfall, or they'd spend a lot longer than one night in the pokey.
I asked them if they slept well, with a huge grin.

I explained to them that the ILLUSIONIST I'd gotten all my magical gear from assured me that none of it would cause any real damage, but that it still felt "hot enough to make the front row break a sweat when it flares up on stage".
Swash: I guess I don't really need to ask WHY...
Me: No. You DON'T. back in character. I lean in to the party and look the rogue dead in the eye, and say in a small, friendly whisper, "don't *expletive* with me." and walk away.

Jaws are still mostly dropped here. Rubbing forheads and eyes in great annoyance/recovery.

Me: I shout out "Are we gonna have any more problems? Or do we know who's the baddest dog on the block now?" (I'm a shifter and all).
Rogue: We'll be good.

And there was much rejoicing. By me. I've got my eyes peeled for them trying to turn this into something more, but I'm confident I can stay one step ahead of them if they try to. Hopefully they'll realize they had this coming, and that I didn't have to use FAKE fire, and was being very generous to them in how I got my revenge. Afterall, it wasn't FAKE fire that was burning me. Or my clothes at least.

Good times, good times.

Renegade Paladin
2008-06-04, 12:24 PM
You didn't die?
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/inconceivable.jpg

Sorry, had to do it. :smalltongue:

SurlySeraph
2008-06-04, 01:13 PM
SilverClawShift, I'm amazed that you didn't post the "I HAVE A PORTABLE HOLE. I HAVE A BAG OF HOLDING. WHEN YOU PUT A PORTABLE HOLE AND A BAG OF HOLDING TOGETHER, STUFF HAPPENS!" story. You've got about a hundred of these stories, don't you?

Lycan 01
2008-06-04, 01:54 PM
Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"

Can I make that my signature?


Could you please just post a thread and fill it with your stories? I love reading them, and they never fail to entertain me. I could not stop laughing through both of the stories you posted in this thread. Seriously, do you have any way to just make a collection of them so everyone on this site can see how awesome your stories are? :smallbiggrin:



Hmmm... Random survival stories........ I got nothin', cause all I play in terms of RPGs is Arkham Horror, and in that game you either live or die. There's no "close calls" against Cthulhu.......

Actually, wait... does this count?


I was playing a PbP game on the Official Elder Scrolls Forums, which I was the co-Host of. I was still able to play as a character, but I had to Host/DM when the real Host was away. Anyway, the story was an Elder Scrolls / Fallout cross-over, which sounds really messed up unless you know how much work I put into it. (Yeah, I wrote the backstory and everything, too...)

Anyway, my character is a Bosmer - 4"5' wood elf - who's packing a .357 handgun and a sniper rifle, and has skills with lockpicking and first-aid care. He got shot in the leg earlier on with a .357, so even with all the healing that's been done, the most he can do is hobble. His friend is an Imperial - normal human - wielding a Jackhammer automatic shotgun. There are several other characters with us, but they don't matter right now...

Anyway, my guy gets cornered in a room with a big lizard monster that takes a lot of ammo to bring down. The rest of the players try to flee, but my guy can't run due to his leg injury. So he draws his .357, takes a shot at the Death Claw to get its attention, and screams for everyone else to run. You know, I figured that a full clip from a Desert Eagle would drop that thing, but in retrospect, I realize that the thing could survive stepping on land mines, and thus would probably not have even noticed my attacks.

Anyway, before it can attack me, my character's friend runs over, stands next to him, and exclaims that he's not letting me hog all the glory of a heroic death. So we both stand there, waiting for the creature to charge at us.


Here's where it all falls apart.


Some new player had just joined, and he had no idea what he was doing. >.< His character, due to the skills he picked from the sign-up sheet, started out with 3 sticks of dynamite. Well, thanks to his timing, his character starts out right outside the room we were all in, and he decides to mossey on in. As it turns out, he's also the guy who woke up the Death Claw... Anyway, he walks in Death Claw follows him, and he panicks and tries to run. Well, being a cliche RP idiot, he decides to light a stick of dynamite and throw it at the monster. Which is, at this point, closest to mine and my friend's characters.

Needless to say, we get kinda upset, but we figure we'll survive it. The Host is the one who decides what damage comes out of an attack, and he can do character-control, such as making us dive for cover before the dynamite explodes. Well, that is what we figured he would do, so we decided to wait for the Host to post.

Well, the new guy gets bored with waiting, so he decides to keep the game going by throwing another stick of dynamite. Me and my friend are getting kinda upset now, since we're literally backed into a corner with a Death Claw and 2 sticks of dynamite near us. We figure maybe we can still survive, somehow.

Finally the new guy throws the last stick and runs from the room laughing, which leaves me and the other guy with this expression: :smallfurious:


And wouldn't you know it...? The Host gets banned that day! (The Mods let him stay online to watch the RP and keep me updated, though... Thank God...) Anyway, I ask him what I should do, since I'm the co-Host. He tells me what should happen... So I went and wrote the outcome of all of our actions.


I died.


Badly.


The explosion shredded the Death Claw, a piece of concrete ripped off my friends arm, and I got pinned to a wall by a piece of rebar through my chest.


I know what your thinking: What does this have to do with the thread? You died!


Well, as it turns out, the Host liked my character enough to let him return to life. Just... not as a human...

Several robots prompty entered the room, pried my corpse off the wall, and dragged it away. Some time later, I returned to the group... as a brain in a robot. Not a cool robot like Robocop, but something more like a cheap rip-off of Wall-E.

So now my character is currently still "alive" and trying to learn to use his new body, and hoping that when they return home to their base he can get a new clone body to wire his brain into.



So yeah. Stupid guy blew me up, and some robots turned me into a cyborg. Yay for me... :smallannoyed:

SilverClawShift
2008-06-04, 02:18 PM
SilverClawShift, I'm amazed that you didn't post the "I HAVE A PORTABLE HOLE. I HAVE A BAG OF HOLDING. WHEN YOU PUT A PORTABLE HOLE AND A BAG OF HOLDING TOGETHER, STUFF HAPPENS!" story.

That story would have been more surprising if I HAD died. Dying wasn't the worst case scenario there.


You've got about a hundred of these stories, don't you?

No way. Only a few dozen :smalltongue:


Could you please just post a thread and fill it with your stories?

I'd feel pretty pompous doing soemthing like that, but I'm glad you like the stories.

I AM going to start a campaign dairy about our current game, since it's going to be a long running full blown story and looks to be pretty interesting.

serok42
2008-06-04, 03:08 PM
Playing West End Games Star Wars.

My friend was a suicidal bounty hunter. We were on a skiff being chased by the bad guys (2 of them) on speeder bikes.

We managed to get one of them with the skiff's blaster. It ended up getting disabled. Before the rest of the party could blink the bounty hunter takes off at full speed on his jet pack smashing into the speeder bike. Through good dice rolls (and a force point) by the bounty hunter and lousy rolls by the DM the speeder was smashed to bits killing the driver. The bounty hunter went away without a scratch.

KazilDarkeye
2008-06-04, 04:18 PM
Our party bard once got knocked unconcious 3 times in one session.

1. Owlbears in a forest.
2. Water Nagas by a lake
3. Kelp Angler under the lake.

Fortunatly she got lucky on stablisation, 'cause she's the party healer. In other words REALLY freakin' bad to lose when we're in enemy territory.

Brasswatchman
2008-06-04, 11:10 PM
One of my characters once ended up bearing witness to a massive, all-out showdown between Tiamat and Bahumet. Rather than staying far away - the sensible thing that my GM presumed we do - my character couldn't just *sit* there. So he pulled out a scroll of teleport, summoned a flying mount, and ported himself into the fray... the fray between gods.

(I know, I know, okay? But my character was lawful good-ish -- well, except for being a necromancer, long story that -- and an overachiever to boot. And it seemed like the heroic sort of thing to do, okay? You don't just sit around and let a freaking god of goodness and light die right in front of you - not without at least trying to do something.)

Basically, the GM had mercy on me; when I (naturally) failed against Tiamat's Fear DC, he had me pass out, and a passing paladin managed to save me.

reiko
2008-06-04, 11:50 PM
so me and my party wound up in this fight with a huge dragon at level 13

fairly easy combat for most but we were two drow, ghost of some sort, and a hobgoblin

now this would be fine but we had as a party two spellcasters, a ghost who couldnt possess non-humanoids, and me the poison ninja....

naturally the hobgoblin ninja winds up doing all the close combat

so we get it going down and were going fine for awhile and it goes tramples and grapples me on a fluke shot

so I'm there 60 or so hp and its about to breath weapon me in the face with no possible options, I take the breath weapon to the face leaving me with 3 hp and still pinned

they killed it before the next turn and i automade the dc to get out of the way of the corpse

afterwords i remembered i had an adamantium pop up house cube that would have made it easier to get out.... well, i'll remember that next time

Thurbane
2008-06-05, 12:30 AM
Playing RHoD, my Cleric of St Cuthbert got zapped by a lightning Bolt, thanks to a Bugbear Sorcerer.

Failed my save, and the damage (rolled out in the open) brought me to exactly -9 hit points, with the rest of my party embroiled in the fight, and no other healer in the party.

All I can say is: thank St Cuthbert for the Diehard feat! :smallbiggrin:

NephandiMan
2008-06-05, 12:40 AM
A fun story that is tangentially related to the following quote:

This was a triumph
I'm making a note here
HUGE SUCCESS
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction...

holywhippet
2008-06-05, 12:40 AM
During one extended battle in which we assaulted a tower guarded by goblins led by a barghest, we managed to kill the barghest outside of the tower. When he went down my monk, who spoke goblin, ordered the goblins to surrender as we'd just taken out their leader. They responded by launching a simultaneous volley of arrows at my monk. Four hit - one critically. I think I had 12 HP at the time so I figured I was dead. The DM rolled up damage and it put me deep in the negatives. I was about ready to write my character off but I decided I'd try my deflect arrows ability to reduce the damage a bit. The roll succeeded. So the DM rolled damage again and reduced the effect by that amount. However, it occured to me that I should be able to pick which arrow to deflect - so I'd deflect the one that would have critically hit.

The rules say that I can pick one ranged attack to deflect - and technically the DM shouldn't have been rolling the attacks all at once. If they had come one at a time I'd have been able to pick the critical hit as I'd be watching my HP after each attack. Anyway, he rerolled the other 3 hits for damage and it left me with 2 HP.

That was the end of one session, in the next session he asked us to roll initiative. I wasn't happy about that since our previous initiative put us ahead of the goblins and it would have been our turn next (allowing me to head for cover). The DM had lost the initiative sheet from the previous session though so we rerolled. I did badly - about 3 or 4 IIRC which meant I was dead last. Fortunately the party rogue (who'd been well outside of the tower sniping from range) fired at the goblins and they had a readied action to strike at the next attacker. The other goblins picked targets other than me. Big mistake, I ran up through the tower and began tossing alchemists fire and oil flasks onto the roof where they were - and they were standing on a wooden floor. From the first toss I took 1 HP of splash damage from the alchemists fire as I hadn't considered that the square I was throwing into was right next to the trapdoor I was underneath. The goblins were soon too busy fighting fires to attack back. Eventually they began trying to climb down the tower - and failing their climb checks badly.

Only three survived the fall (because they were level 2 fighters). My monk ran down the stairs and back outside the tower. He fired his heavy crossbow at one survivor - natural 1, thankfully I didn't hit any party members. Rather than using a full round to reload he walked over on the next round and tried his stunning fist attack. The attack was a hit, but the goblin made his saving throw. On his next turn, the goblin hit my monk and dropped him to negative HP. Thankfully our cleric (who was out of spells) made a healing check to stabilise.

evisiron
2008-06-05, 12:44 AM
In the last session I was playing the characters where flying Griffin back across a less-than-friendly place known as the 'Desolate Wastes' when they attracted the attention of a hungry Blue Dragon, who proceeded to blast the rest of the party to the group before pursuing the remaining two.

They swoop down and try to hop off as fast as possible so the Griffon can take off again. The Rogue screws up and takes some falling damage but the Barbarian is fine. The Dragon closes on these two and unleashes another breath attack, which the Barbarian dodges the bulk of. The Rogue is less lucky and drops to -8. With no time to lose the Barbarian jumps in to attack the Dragon alone, and gets in some great hits. On the last round before it unleashes another breath weapon on the two of them...

DM: It has 61hp left, and this is your last attack...
Barb: *Rolls crit on greataxe* 62 damage!

[Much cheering takes place]

Shademan
2008-06-05, 02:35 AM
lets if i can remember...
Luciano Seaside. warrior/thief lv 3/3 neutral evil. 2nd edition.
Bitter mercenary/bounty hunter with no eyebrows! they were burned away by a CERTAIN noble. freak accident.


the grand adventure had JUST started and i had allready made a enemy of the counts stablemaster assistant. Carl.

so Luciano was escorting Jacinthe (a mage/fighter that had charmed him and had him as her servant and teacher for QUITE some time, Luciano broke free of the spell but pretends he is still under it) to the officers bar, but he staed outside because he had made some enemies the last time... cough.
anyways. then a large shadow falls on him...
He twirls around, axe in hand! it is Carl! "you pull weapon on me, boy?" (boy? luciano is 30 years) "yeah i do!" Luciano answers and slashes for his gut. MISS! slash again! HIT! Carls entrails are spilled out on the street, offcourse the guards with chainmail and bastard swords (chainmails are VERY expensive. i barely have a leather armour!) so Luciano is surrounded and try to escape by climbing the wall. YES THE CASTLE WALL! he gets three bastard swords rammed up his... buttom. so with half his ass off he keeps climbing. he gets to the top of the wall ond climb down to a roof (under constant crossbow fire) and jumps over to the other side of the street on another roof and hides in some shadows. he looses the guards and rendevouz with the party shortly after. he didnt know that the cleric WAS a cleric (magic is illegal . think medieval europe) so the cleric had'tha' make a choice. clap his ass and heal it, pretending he on,y did it for... well you know. or actually tell that he's a cleric.
he did the latter.

next: PRISON BREAK!

Chronicled
2008-06-05, 10:14 AM
I too liked that method of revenge. :smallbiggrin:


I'd feel pretty pompous doing soemthing like that, but I'm glad you like the stories.

I AM going to start a campaign dairy about our current game, since it's going to be a long running full blown story and looks to be pretty interesting.

Hmph. It's not being egotistical if you're doing it by popular request!

And I'm quite happy to see that there'll be another superb campaign diary to read.

ocato
2008-06-05, 12:50 PM
So, we're in this primordial jungle fighting monsters of various sorts, including a large dinosaur that could breathe fire. It wasn't a dragon, but it looked like one. Like a T-Rex that breathes fire maybe, I forget.

Backstory: The DM and the group had been arguing about the source of fire-breathing in D&D. A player had tried to use an anti-magic field to stop the magical fire, and the DM ruled on the spot that it was a natural ability (I agree). We discussed it, and we went with the good old glands that shoot two explosive liquids that ignite when they mix.

So here we are, fighting a giant dinosaur that breathes fire and is wrecking shop. We are at its mercy, except it has no mercy-- only hunger. So, being the party Wizard, I step up and start taunting it to get its attention. And by taunting it, I mean shooting it with my crossbow and praying my 3 spells left can get me through the fight.

Then it ate me.

Well, technically it grappled me in its throat. I wasn't down the gullet yet, but it was a matter of a turn or two before I was lunch. So I fireballed myself. The DM ruled that the fire would ignite the glands and blow the dinosaur's head off like a rocket. I went from full HP to -9.

Of course my friends are jerks and refuse to admit that I did it on purpose.
I need better friends.

Johel
2009-08-25, 05:06 AM
The players were still pretty green about D&D 3.5
For them, most animals HAD to be weak walking meals while THEY were invincible heroes.

The party wanted some information from some crazy gnome druid (yoda-style) and so, they agreed to do several "domestic" tasks.
1st level LN Cleric got sent to the river by the druid to do his laundry. As he's grumbling at his goddess about how hard and humiliating Her service can be sometime, he spot a boar on the other side of the river.

Now, it's more of a pound that a true river and one could easily cross it, with water up to the knee. The boar isn't a dire boar but those creatures are kinda agressive and terrirorial anyway.

Feeling confident, the cleric just shout at him and wave a hand while reaching for his mace (just in case...or maybe he wanted some meat).
Well, boars can't understand common but this one might have get the general idea. One piercing scream and a charge later, the priest is down into negative, not having hit a single blow at the boar. This is actually what saved him, since the beast just past its way, branding him as harmless and letting him for dead.

With a big "WTF ?!", he healed himself and went back to the cavern of the druid, who complained about how still dirty his clothes were and how useless the sissy priests of the city are. The party's rogue, sent to pick up mushrooms, encountered the very same boar but, using his newly acquired metaknowledge, climb the nearest tree and let the boar eat the mushrooms.

Nai_Calus
2009-08-25, 04:38 PM
I haven't done anything epic to haul myself out of death, but there was the time I only survived due to the fighter rolling a one on his damage roll, and only knocking me to -6 instead of -9 to immediately fail a stabilization roll or just plain dead.

(We didn't know we were fighting each other due to a lame metagamey 'puzzle' where we looked like golems to each other. He had all this random extra damage to his spear because the DM was apparently trying to kill me, which would have been stupid since it would have ended his campaign with me gone due to not having enough people, and I was already blah on that campaign and nearly quit even NOT dying there because it was such ridiculous crap.)

Alejandro
2009-08-25, 08:16 PM
My swashbuckler was stunned and grappled by a mind flayer, and it had inserted its tentacles and was ready to eat my brain, only needing to make that last grapple check to do so.

It rolled a 1 on the grapple check, failing to eat my brain.

It was driven off in that same round by a ranger, who was throwing jars containing other brains the mind flayer had stored, at it.

Woodsman
2009-08-25, 08:18 PM
God, my Yuan-ti story seems to keep coming up.

Here it is:
My DM did pull something on me, but it was mostly my fault (It being my first character, I couldn't think of a history, so the DM wrote one up, we both agreed I'd be amnesiac, and I have barely any clue as to his history still).

So, we're fighting this big battle against Deadly Dancers (ToM), and my character gets split off and brutally sliced to pieces. My DM PM's me (it's PbP) and asks for a Will save. I hand him one, and he responds in the actual topic with my characters longsword getting shoved into a stone wall and some sort of frightful presence.

Well, as it soon turns out, my character is apparently a Yuan-ti. The rest of my group proceeds to "kill" me (And by that I mean kill the Yuan-ti, which reverts back into my character, who comes back asleep), and then tie me up and question me after the battle is over.

So the group decides to turn me in to the authorities, in which case I am tried (with the party gnome bard/rouge/chameleon (house-ruled in) as my lawyer) and it's decided I am to wear a "kill collar," set to the conditions that if I turn into a Yuan-ti again or I perform any sort of hostile act towards my group, it blows and separates my head from my neck.

We're currently on a quest to turn my character into a full human. After we attempt to negotiate with the Dancers, though, as insane as that seems.

So, yeah, I though my DM was a jerk at that point, but I'm alive (Much to my and think his) surprise. And as I said, it was my fault for not writing a history.

Lycan 01
2009-08-25, 08:47 PM
Things Y'Golonac, a Great Old One did to a newbie player during the first game of Call of Cthulhu I hosted for him:

-Scared him into hysterics
-Grabbed him by the throat and slammed him twice against a wall
-Hurled him down a flight of stairs
-IIRC, Y'Golonac also landed a punch at the foot of the stairs
-Grabbed him by the head and slammed his face against a dresser drawer
-Punched through the floor where the player's head should have been, only to get his fist stuck in the floor.

I couldn't believe it. Almost every attack had the potention to kill the guy, but somehow he kept getting low injury rolls. He somehow managed to limp away with only 3 HP left, while carrying his friend who'd been shot twice out of the house.


Pretty good for a guy who'd never played an RPG before. :smallamused:

Mystic Muse
2009-08-25, 08:49 PM
I saved two members of my team from death by boiling hot water by saying at the beginning of the session we all had around 50 feet of rope.

I'm awesome.:smallcool:

Wraith
2009-08-25, 09:32 PM
I've been playing a lot of WFRP lately, a game in which it's very easy to be horribly maimed or just killed outright, and yet we have only lost 1 PC so far despite a number of frightening encounters.

The most recent, and impressive, case would be a narrowly-averted TPK which occurred only by the grace of Nuffle the Dice God.
The party contains a fledgling Vampire Hunter, a Journeyman ("Level 3 out of 5") Wizard who specializes in fire spells, his Apprentice who has yet to choose a discipline, and another melee-based class which I can't remember, possibly a Highwayman. I play a human Cat Burglar - my combat skills are nothing to write home about, but I'm ridiculously agile and have aquired a few useful magical items that seem to be much better than everyone first assumed.

I should also mention that, in the process of gathering these items, I've been inflicted with lycanthropy - whenever I lose a certain number of wounds or fail a DM-requested willpower roll under stressful circumstances, I turn into a feral monster that is nominally under my control so long as I try to rip my antagonist apart first and foremost. That was a painful story in and of itself, but...

We had awoken in the night by a crowd of zombies running riot shambling aimlessly through our town, and after killing a lot of them we traced them back to their source: an imposing Tower hidden from view by illusionary magic. We crept inside and, after battling a number of guardians and solving a few puzzles we made it to the top floor where the Master of the tower was awaiting us: A Vampire and a pair of Wight bodyguards.

If you don't know WFRP very well, I should like to take this oppurtunity to point out that Vampires are absolutely brutal opponents, even for a skilled party. They have extremely good stats, are highly intelligent (and therefore can use extremely nasty magic as well as being allowed to 'plan ahead' where lesser creatures would simply lunge into battle) and a list of immunities and damage reductions as long as your arm. We were in no state to battle one in it's sanctum, let alone one as obviously powerful as this.
The party, however, were having a great time and decided to go for Death or Glory approach. As soon as we saw the pale loking man in the evening dress try to speak, the Pyromancer lets rip with a spell to set most of the room on fire, and the Witch Hunter charges into the fray as heroically as you would expect.

Two or three rounds later, the Witch Hunter is unconscious on the floor, the Highwayman is a mangled pile of flesh stewing gently in his own gore, the Apprentice is gibbering in a corner under the effects of a Fear-causing ability, and the Wizard is slowly suffocating for the next dozen-or-so rounds after miscasting a spell and it backfiring on him. I am alone, and so far my efforts have been for naught - I have no magical weapon, and therefore am little threat to the Vampire and no threat at all to the Wights, and the windows are very solidly boarded up so that the famous Hollywood tactic of smashing the windows and letting sunlight do the job for me isn't possible without somehow finding a sledgehammer to get the job done....

Cue a stress-test to see if I 'Were Out'... which I 'failed'!
It's a curse, albeit an awesome one, which means that I have no option to transform voluntarily. So instead, I just stand there while the Vampire strides forward and casually rips a chunk of flesh out of my torso. Death was imminent - I couldn't hit hard enough to kill my enemy, and he couldn't fail to finish me off even without his friends backing him up.
Luckily that did the trick and I went Wolfen on the spot, finally having a chance to fight back. Or so I thought....
Several tragic dice-rolls later, and I have ANOTHER big hole where my flesh should be. Even in my new form, grappling a Vampire is a fools' errand and no amount of rerolls was going to let me hurl it through the windows and solve my problems.
In sheer desperation, and determined to die valiantly (or in a suitably blood-crazy frenzy, depending on which side of the character you were asking...), I made on desperate attack with my bare claws to try and buy enough time for the Mages to recover before they too were consumed.

The first attack misses by a country mile. Resolutely rolling the second, I was painfully aware that the odds of me even hurting the thing were remote, let alone dealing a substantial wound.
Ulric be praised! My damage dice explode repeatedly and the last one also rolls high, tallied up to cause a mighty 30 points of damage to the creature of the night before me! (For reference, I am well into my second career at this point and can only sustain 12 wounds before I am maimed or killed - I rolled more than enough to kill any 2 of our PC's added together!)

The DM ruled that, in an adrenaline-fueled final attack, I made an uppercut that had plunged my arm right through the Vampire's chest, removing his heart before I tore his head off with the upswing.
It was a geniune 'Mortal Kombat' moment, due to the fickle dice finally returning me into their favour and thus rescuing the entire party from horrible exsanguinatory demise. One round later, and I'd be a fur rug in front of the fire and everyone else would be... well... lunch! :smallsmile:

Crow
2009-08-25, 09:43 PM
We had three characters stabilize naturally (the percentile roll) in the same game (same TPK actually). I thought that was pretty crazy!

sadi
2009-08-25, 10:18 PM
Many editions ago, in a game I was running, the players were trying to acquire this magic gem for some reason or other, they finally found it in a triangluar shaped room, suspended in mid air in a crystal force field. They knew if it was destroyed bad things were going to happen to them, and everything in a 2 mile radius. So the party manages to figure out the traps and puzzles to get the 3 keys to turn the force field off. Three of them go to the corners of the room and simultaneously turn off the force field while the other 4 members hide outside the room scared that something bad was going to happen.... They turn it off, the gem drops.... I put up my hand with 5 fingers held out and slowly close them. on the count of 1 second before their death, the dwarf wearing full plate says I dive for the gem. I calculate size of the room, where the dwarf is at, the fact hes slow and wearing full plate and say, ok roll me roll me a 1 twice in a row on a d20. The player is sitting right besides me, picks up one of my dice, and proceeds to roll 1 and 1 on it.

EnnPeeCee
2009-08-25, 10:37 PM
One time in my group, one of players set off a trap that we had failed to find. He was crushed under a spiked ceiling. The damage put him at something like, -11. Grumpily he scratched a big x onto his character sheet. Feeling generous (since we were still low level and resing was too expensive for us), the DM decided to add up the xp gained from "defeating" the trap. Sure enough, the little bit of xp put the dead character up a level, earning him enough hp to live. Negative and bleeding, but alive.

KuReshtin
2009-08-26, 02:46 AM
I used to have a rogue that had a tendency to get reduced to -HP every game session, and always got saved by the party cleric. Mostly, this was because of the brashness and impulsiveness of the character, so it was usually self-inflicted by doing stupid stuff.


Two notable instances in the game was the encounter with the dragon, where the party came into a cavern with an altar at the far end filled with precious gems and gold and stuff. The party finds the cavern empty and heads up towards the altar to pick up the shiny stuff.
The rogue has previously shown that he likes shinies and he starts grabbing stuff from the altar, at which point we hear a grinding noise from behind us.
A part of the wall of the cavern slides open, and reveals a dragon that heads towards us.
My rogue rolls highest initiative and decides that he'll go up to the dragon and slap him over the nose with his rapier. Roll is good, and does some minor damage to the dragon, which only means that the dragon gets annoyed and attacks the rogue with a bite attack.
Attack hits and the rogue is reduced to -6HP in the very first round.
It takes another few rounds of fighting for the rest of the party to maneuver around enough s that the cleric can get a heal on the rogue to stabilise him.
With some help from a Bag of Tricks, the group manages to slay the dragon, and revive the rogue.
Much merriment was had by everyone in the party about my getting in the first strike on the dragon, and then almost getting killed.

The second instance, my character actually died. Same group, and we were in some dungeon that we had to clear out to gain our freedom for 'trespassing' or something like that.
Anyways, we get to the BBEG at the end of the dungeon and it mind controls the ranger and turns him against the party. Since my rogue was the closest one to the ranger, he gets targeted first, and since the ranger had some magic gloves or whatever, he manages to get three arrows off in a single round, all three hitting the surprised rogue, bringing him down to about -36HP. Instantly dead. Out of the fight.
Again, the group manages to defeat the bad guy and gets a magic item by the GM.
To be nice to us, he lets us roll the D% to decide what type of magical item, and since no one in the group has a ressurect spell, we all make a joke about how cool it would be to get a 'staff of life' to ressurect my rogue again.
Well, the party decides to let me roll the dice, because that way it's my own fault if I don't roll up a staff of life. Well, I roll the D% and the GM consults the magic items table, looks at me, shows me the magic items table and we both start laughing. Needless to say, I got the staff of life, and my party got to ressurect me... AGAIN..

I liked that rogue.

ericgrau
2009-08-26, 07:43 AM
I remember a fight against a young adult blue dragon and 6 drow slaves. Our party was about 4th level and definitely out classed. However I took leadership position (I was playing an elf cleric of Tamara) and with some team work (and a few lucky rolls) we were winning the fight. The blue dragon was getting torqued off that he was losing minions.

Blue: "Surrender!"
Me: "What, you wish to surrender to us? Very well, we'll gladly accept!"
GM: "Do you actually say that?"
Me: "Yeah well he offered."

This obviously insulted the blue dragon and he dove at me, pinning me to the ground with only 3 hit points to my name. I was pretty sure next round I'd be dragon kibble so on my "last" turn I tried casting a spell (while pinned) called Balor's Nimbus (I think). Succeeded the Concentration check and the spell gave me an aura of fire, causing fire damage to anything in graple with me. Well I maxed out the damage dice and brought the young blue dragon to single digit hit points as well. He was about to bite my head off when he realized that all his drow slaves were defeated and he was surrounded by the remaining party, weapons drawn on him.

The dragon took a double move to make a hastey retreat :smallbiggrin:
And I lived to heal another day.

Regardless of the concentration check you can't cast spells with somatic components while grappled or pinned. Furthermore when the dragon pins you he has the option to prevent you from speaking. Balor's Nimbus has a somatic component unless you used still spell.

Lycan 01
2009-08-26, 01:45 PM
I've been playing a lot of WFRP lately, a game in which it's very easy to be horribly maimed or just killed outright, and yet we have only lost 1 PC so far despite a number of frightening encounters.

The most recent, and impressive, case would be a narrowly-averted TPK which occurred only by the grace of Nuffle the Dice God.
The party contains a fledgling Vampire Hunter, a Journeyman ("Level 3 out of 5") Wizard who specializes in fire spells, his Apprentice who has yet to choose a discipline, and another melee-based class which I can't remember, possibly a Highwayman. I play a human Cat Burglar - my combat skills are nothing to write home about, but I'm ridiculously agile and have aquired a few useful magical items that seem to be much better than everyone first assumed.

I should also mention that, in the process of gathering these items, I've been inflicted with lycanthropy - whenever I lose a certain number of wounds or fail a DM-requested willpower roll under stressful circumstances, I turn into a feral monster that is nominally under my control so long as I try to rip my antagonist apart first and foremost. That was a painful story in and of itself, but...

We had awoken in the night by a crowd of zombies running riot shambling aimlessly through our town, and after killing a lot of them we traced them back to their source: an imposing Tower hidden from view by illusionary magic. We crept inside and, after battling a number of guardians and solving a few puzzles we made it to the top floor where the Master of the tower was awaiting us: A Vampire and a pair of Wight bodyguards.

If you don't know WFRP very well, I should like to take this oppurtunity to point out that Vampires are absolutely brutal opponents, even for a skilled party. They have extremely good stats, are highly intelligent (and therefore can use extremely nasty magic as well as being allowed to 'plan ahead' where lesser creatures would simply lunge into battle) and a list of immunities and damage reductions as long as your arm. We were in no state to battle one in it's sanctum, let alone one as obviously powerful as this.
The party, however, were having a great time and decided to go for Death or Glory approach. As soon as we saw the pale loking man in the evening dress try to speak, the Pyromancer lets rip with a spell to set most of the room on fire, and the Witch Hunter charges into the fray as heroically as you would expect.

Two or three rounds later, the Witch Hunter is unconscious on the floor, the Highwayman is a mangled pile of flesh stewing gently in his own gore, the Apprentice is gibbering in a corner under the effects of a Fear-causing ability, and the Wizard is slowly suffocating for the next dozen-or-so rounds after miscasting a spell and it backfiring on him. I am alone, and so far my efforts have been for naught - I have no magical weapon, and therefore am little threat to the Vampire and no threat at all to the Wights, and the windows are very solidly boarded up so that the famous Hollywood tactic of smashing the windows and letting sunlight do the job for me isn't possible without somehow finding a sledgehammer to get the job done....

Cue a stress-test to see if I 'Were Out'... which I 'failed'!
It's a curse, albeit an awesome one, which means that I have no option to transform voluntarily. So instead, I just stand there while the Vampire strides forward and casually rips a chunk of flesh out of my torso. Death was imminent - I couldn't hit hard enough to kill my enemy, and he couldn't fail to finish me off even without his friends backing him up.
Luckily that did the trick and I went Wolfen on the spot, finally having a chance to fight back. Or so I thought....
Several tragic dice-rolls later, and I have ANOTHER big hole where my flesh should be. Even in my new form, grappling a Vampire is a fools' errand and no amount of rerolls was going to let me hurl it through the windows and solve my problems.
In sheer desperation, and determined to die valiantly (or in a suitably blood-crazy frenzy, depending on which side of the character you were asking...), I made on desperate attack with my bare claws to try and buy enough time for the Mages to recover before they too were consumed.

The first attack misses by a country mile. Resolutely rolling the second, I was painfully aware that the odds of me even hurting the thing were remote, let alone dealing a substantial wound.
Ulric be praised! My damage dice explode repeatedly and the last one also rolls high, tallied up to cause a mighty 30 points of damage to the creature of the night before me! (For reference, I am well into my second career at this point and can only sustain 12 wounds before I am maimed or killed - I rolled more than enough to kill any 2 of our PC's added together!)

The DM ruled that, in an adrenaline-fueled final attack, I made an uppercut that had plunged my arm right through the Vampire's chest, removing his heart before I tore his head off with the upswing.
It was a geniune 'Mortal Kombat' moment, due to the fickle dice finally returning me into their favour and thus rescuing the entire party from horrible exsanguinatory demise. One round later, and I'd be a fur rug in front of the fire and everyone else would be... well... lunch! :smallsmile:


This... This is epic. What is the name of the game you were playing? I must find a copy...

Yukitsu
2009-08-28, 06:44 PM
Yesterday, my character wanted to try killing as many militants as she could before the rest of the party arrived. This is because I was killing lawful "good" clerics/warriors who, in my opinion were unjust in their dealing with lycanthropes, whom they were killing. During my raid in there, I learned that not only were there 600 enemy troops, but there were also several who were level 15-18. I'm level 9. :smallsmile:

Anyway, I use hit and run to wittle down a few dozen of the level 5s, resulting in the big, heavy bruisers coming out. The conversation went like this.

DM: He waits for your bubble to drop down, and he casts holy word. Any SR?
Me: Nope, I'm paralyzed, stunned and deafened. Their round again.
DM: You're hit with dimensional anchor and dimensional locks, just to make sure you stay in place. You have 7 rounds before the binding spell finishes, and locks you in a gem.
Me: I manifest a construct outside the locks range, and have it drag me away.
DM: They dismiss the construct.
Me: I fall off the parapets then, as I was at the edge.
DM: Blast, that means you're out of line of effect for the binding.
Me: I call another construct and it drags me off. Since I sovereign glued the gate shut, they likely won't catch up to me.
Other player: Doesn't holy word auto plane shift evil outsiders?
DM: ...
Me: ...
DM: I guess those last 3 rounds didn't happen.
Me: I guess I live anyway.
DM: Where were you from again?
Me: Faerun. (In his version of planescape, that makes it an alternate material, making me an outsider.)
Other player: That's awesome.

Elfin
2009-08-28, 06:55 PM
I'm sorry? What was that?

I couldn't hear you over the sound of us saving the world at great personal cost. :smalltongue:



I don't have THAT many stories :smalltongue:

But since you're interested, here's the revenge I brought on their heads:

So I got my revenge tonight, and it was sweet and tasty.

One common trait of our games is that we leave a MOUNTAIN of notes after each session. We all carry a small notepad, and anything we need to discuss in private, we scribble on the notepad. Helps keeping out-of-character knowledge from becmoing an issue, because you didn't hear that information in the first place. The most common notes are between the DM and players, but if characters decide to head off to discuss something alone, we can actually plot without the DMs fore-knowledge of our plan. Makes things interesting.
And we recycle the massive amounts of paper we tear through, don't worry.
Anyway, the end result is that we don't really raise eyebrows when secret notes are being passed. It's a given, and it's not necessarily something sinister, just a roleplaying aide.

So my party (now level 5, the last level before we become engines of superheroic destruction), finds a relatively quiet out-of-the-way corner of the world to crash in for a few days and collect our bearings after some particularily BAD planning went south. We had a mini quest in the town helping out a gnome stage magician (this was NOT something I set up, the DM dropped it on us as randomly as anything else, I had no prior knowledge about it).
Then we planned on relaxing for the evening. While the party started a brawl in a bar for entertainment (really.) I headed out for a shopping excursion. Since this was all out-of-character stuff for the other players, it consisted of me and the DM passing notes about what I was hoping to accomplish, while he DMed a random bar fight.
As a side note, the vestige I had bound gave me a number of random abilities, one of which included being treated as a wizard of my level when it came to using spell trigger items like wands, so I could use em freely same as a 5th level wizard.

Now, what I did, and the DM approved readily, was find the gnomish stage magician we'd helped earlier, and talk to him about buying some of his stage magic stuff, which the gnome was fine with (he was a real spellcaster who just happened to use it in theatrics instead of adventuring, putting on a 'brilliant' show for entertainment purposes).
So I came back to my party with
- A number of wands that did various useless magical tricks
- A few pints of flammable oil

The local authorities (with a semi-southern sherrif twang, which was a ncie touch) were berrating my party for causing such a ruckus. He let them go with a slap on the wrist cause he could tell 'they didn't mean no real harm', along with a warning to keep their noses clean until they passed to the next town. My party sheepishly agreed that the fun was over, and we headed to a nearby inn for the night.
We were going to get seperate rooms, but I suggested we'd probably feel fine with crashing in a room together (we did it in dungeons and the wilderness anyway) and it'd keep our cost down, which in the long run could give us more cash for crucial gear, so my party agreed that we'd just rent a sizeable room and work out some sleeping arrangements there. We roleplayed it, arguing over who was gonna sleep where without letting it get too heated, with people arguing that they weren't sleeping on the floor until the party wizard reminded everyone (me included) that we all have bedrolls and blankets and sleeping gear in our packs, like always. Having a pillow makes sleeping on the floor more bearable, and we let the fighter (swashbuckler, actually) sleep in the bed cause all the extra physical stress was worse on the joints and back ect.

So the Dm tells us we all fall asleep while I'm handing him a note. The party starts describing waking up, and he gives us the always ominous "Oh no, wait." Which means he's being the devil.
Or in this case, that I'm being the devil.

And he starts making them roll listen checks over the swashbucklers snoring, which they fail, and are very freaked out about.

Especially when they realize, the DM didn't make ME roll a listen check.

The DM makes them roll a few more, which made me nervous, but none of them passed. They were starting to get nerve wracked, with the rogue actually grabbing his character sheet and yelling "WAKE UP MAN, WAKE UP, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!" but it was too late. I abandon the notes and say aloud to the dm "I splash the rest of the oil in the swashbucklers face".

Jaws drop.

DM: You wake up with a cough and a snort, immediately assaulted by the overpowering smell of violatile, COMBUSTIBLE chemicals.
Swashbuckler: I shout "What in the hells are you doing?!" loud enough to wake the party.
DM: Sure, I'll give you that. Everyone stirs, the smell of flammable oil permeating the room.
Me: I wave my crossbow pistol around and say "No no one move, or this is liable to get very messy very quickly" with a sweet smile.
DM: Nate roll a spot check (Nate's our wizard, and he passed the check). You notice the bolt loaded into the crossbow pistol is glowing faintly, a dull red tip that, even in your groggy state, realize is probably ripe with magical fire.
Nate: I say aloud "For the love of god no one move"
Swashbuckler: Screw that! Roll initiative, I jump out of bed at top speed and attack with my fists!
DM: Jump out of bed at top speed?
Swashbuckler: Yeah
DM: what's your Dex? *rolls a secret dice* take 5 bludgeoning damage from smashing your face into the wall of force over your bed
Swashbuckler: you've gotta be KIDDING me. Where the hell did THAT come from.
Me: Out of character (which we just say out loud) The gnome uses moveable walls of force to roll marbles over the tops of the audience
Swashbuckler: What the hell? what's that mean?
Me: I'll explain later. Back in character now though. I figured you'd be the one to try something like that. Aren't swashbucklers supposed to be INTELLIGENT?
Swashbuckler: Fine, back in character, what do you want from us?

So I went on to explain that I'd gotten some unique magical gear while they were all wasting their time peaking under waitresses skirts and smashing mugs of ale on random passers heads. I tell them that they're all allready under the effect of one of the spells. Which is controlled by me. And that if I decide, they will immediately take 1d2 points of fire damage any round I decide I'm unhappy with them. A weak effect... except that they are all soaked, along with the room, in torch oil.
I also tell them that, while they get will saves against the second effect, I can try to force any of them to freeze, or pick the direction they run in (which will be away from me, requiring them to close the distance if they want to attack, if they get a chance to).

Wizard: Ug. God. Allright. What do you want us to do?
Me: Burn for me.
Wizard: ...what?
Me: I activate the fire ability. "BURN FOR ME!!!!!!"
DM: everyone flip a coin for damage, and then roll 1d6 for fire damage as the entire room flares up like the pits of hell themselves.
Rogue: Oh *EXPLETIVE* Oh *EXPLETIVE* THIS IS NOT HAPPENING.
DM: No, it is, you're very much on fire.
Swashbuckler: I roll off the bed, avoiding the wall of force, and ATTACK.
Me: Not really.
Swash: huh?
DM: Roll a will save.
Swash: Oh you've gotta be *expletive* kidding me. *rolls and fails, by a wide margin*
Me: He runs out of the room
Swash: Runs out of the room screaming "OH GOD I'M ON FIRE"

The DM goes on to explain that everyone in the inn goes into panic mode as the flames spread out of our room and a group of random people run by FULLY engulfed in flame. Along with making them roll 1d6 for fire damage randomly (about once a round). All while I run behind them, laughing maniacally, making them run in random directions and freezing occasionally, while on fire, screaming "DANCE MY PUPPETS, BURN BURN BURN. BURN AND DANCE! HAHAHAHA"

Then I cast invisibility on myself and dissapear into the alleyway (we're outside at this point, along with the evacuated inn).

DM keeps making them roll 1d6s while they dance for me unable to put out the flames, and freezing anytime they try to stop drop and roll or go for something that might help. when the wizard is at about 1/5th of his hitpoint total, the DM gives them this.

DM: Suddenly, the illusory flames wink out of existance, and you're left standing, panting in terror, under the night sky. In your skivvies.
Rogue: WHAT?!?!?!
DM: Good question, I'm sure you'd be wondering what the hell that was about in character too. But there's no time for that, the local authorities show up, and immediately place you all under arrest, dragging your protesting forms into the night, saying he knew you were trouble and that he shoulda locked you up after the barfight.

Jaws still dropped.

Me: I watch and wait while everyone tries to figure out what happened, until the crowd starts shuffling nervously back into the inn or leaving as warranted, and sneak back to my room, locking the door and curling up in the bed.

I slept soundly (though the room did still smell of oil) and got up bright and early to wait by the jailhouse for my party.

The local lawman and his goons escorted them to the front, and told them he wanted them out of town by nightfall, or they'd spend a lot longer than one night in the pokey.
I asked them if they slept well, with a huge grin.

I explained to them that the ILLUSIONIST I'd gotten all my magical gear from assured me that none of it would cause any real damage, but that it still felt "hot enough to make the front row break a sweat when it flares up on stage".
Swash: I guess I don't really need to ask WHY...
Me: No. You DON'T. back in character. I lean in to the party and look the rogue dead in the eye, and say in a small, friendly whisper, "don't *expletive* with me." and walk away.

Jaws are still mostly dropped here. Rubbing forheads and eyes in great annoyance/recovery.

Me: I shout out "Are we gonna have any more problems? Or do we know who's the baddest dog on the block now?" (I'm a shifter and all).
Rogue: We'll be good.

And there was much rejoicing. By me. I've got my eyes peeled for them trying to turn this into something more, but I'm confident I can stay one step ahead of them if they try to. Hopefully they'll realize they had this coming, and that I didn't have to use FAKE fire, and was being very generous to them in how I got my revenge. Afterall, it wasn't FAKE fire that was burning me. Or my clothes at least.

Good times, good times.

Sheer awesomeness. :smallbiggrin:

pseudodragon
2009-08-30, 08:03 PM
just today, we were fighting this dragon-horse thing. me and the NPC mage were floating and a PC and a NPC were on the ground. the enimie used a breath weapon, and nearly killed the NPC and i chanelled all my healing magic into him, and made him have 1 HP.

J.Gellert
2009-08-31, 05:59 AM
A long time ago, we were in a cave, fighting trolls.

Fighter and rogue are on the front line mopping up after I (the mage) laid some smack-down.

Then the DM says that a troll sneaks up on from behind (a tunnel coming from the cave's entrance), attacks twice, rend, and I'm somewhere between -15 and -20 in one round.

:smallconfused:

I was a little confused. First of all, what kind of messed up action is that, where it moves and attacks twice? Or did it sneak as close as 10 feet from my position? How does a troll sneak up on anyone, anyway? You need to be blind and deaf... and insensitive to the tremor of giant feet on the ground :smalltongue:

Then I reminded the DM that I had in fact left three animated troll skeletons at the entrance to "watch our backs" (was doing him a favor because he says he doesn't enjoy running fights with too many summons/allies, so my undead usually lag behind). Of course another troll would be either torn to bits, or it would have at least made some noise.

So that didn't happen after all.

I am not unhappy that this particular DM isn't running games any more :smallsmile:

Foryn Gilnith
2009-08-31, 07:16 AM
Troll Rogue or somesuch, maxed ranks in Hide/Move Silently and probably some items too. Got the Pounce ability from somewhere, probably a barbarian dip. Got lucky rolls, and on the surprise round, charged you as a standard. Got its two attacks from Pounce, plus sneak attack, and would have got you. The skeletons might have done it a number, though.

Rixx
2009-08-31, 12:52 PM
Terrance Walker, the reckless ranger, decided to poke his head out from cover to take pot-shots at a sorcerer with several Scorching Rays still left in him. When he (that is, Terrance) was in low single digit HP.

The sorcerer also had a hostage, with a 20% chance to hit her instead.

Everything turned out all right.

woodenbandman
2009-08-31, 01:46 PM
I made a deal with a CR 40 devil and lived through it. He wanted a specific soul, I offered to get him a soul like it, offering my soul as collateral. I had to awaken a bunny, turn it undead, and then give it to him. That was pretty odd. But in the end it got me the map to the center of (this world's version of) the temple of elemental evil. Yay, I win.

That character turned evil and, if we ever do a campaign in that world again, will be the badguy of the campaign.

lyko555
2009-08-31, 03:59 PM
I had a lovely lvl 8 dread necromancer that i had grown very fond of. It was in a forgotten realms campaign and for some reason the dm hated me. The campain had a lot of undead in it that were way op for their hit dice and I was grabbing them left right and center. The clutch finally came we were following the railroad the gm had for us when we encountered a 28 hd skeletal red dragon. Our fealess bleader the barbarian charged and got combod for half of his hp. I walk up and cast control undead only to bounce of the things horribly high sr. It turns and pops me for my entire health pool. so im sitting at -8 bleeding out when my 3 super deadites jump it. The dragon obliterates them with 1 hit a piece. with the gm grinning maniachly. but 1 of the deadites landed close enough to me when it died that the negative energy burst healed me. so i lay there at -1 and cast control undead. The gm tells me to roll an 18. I roll a 19 and laugh.
Ancient skele dragon 0 second lvl spell 1

B0nd07
2009-08-31, 09:06 PM
I once had a Rilkan Incarnate that survived many near-death experiences. I can't remember them all, but a few I can include being almost eaten by a T-Rex, being rended by a girallon (twice I think), and a spell induced heart attack. What finally killed her was a suicide attack on an ogre mage (iirc). She almost killed it with that attack.

Saintjebus
2009-08-31, 09:35 PM
This was in a low level Living Forgotten Realms game(4e). I was playing a 2nd level drow sorceror- who was insane. We were in the first Baldur's Gate Module, in which we had to go into a sewer cave and fight, essentially, poo monsters. I was fairly low in initiative, and so one poo monster was already engaged. I decided to jump into the filthy water to try and flank with one of our tanks on the other side. I went under the water- face to face with another poo monster. I said the first thing that came into my head-"I bite him."
DM- "You what?"
Me-"I have Vampiric Heritage. I bite him."
DM-"Attack roll"

I rolled a nat 1. The monster then bit me. And then started chewing. By the time my initiative came up again, I was at 0 HP. I made my death saving throw with 20; so I get to spend a healing surge. Next turn, I am still grappled(in its mouth!) so I spend a move action to get out. Nothing. So I look at my skills and realize-
Me-"I intimidate"
DM-"You what?"
Me-"I have a lot of ranks in intimidate. I intimidate him!"
DM- "roll it"

I rolled close to a nat 20 on that one. Scared the monster so bad it ran into the arms of both of our defenders. I intimidated the monster into running away while I was in his mouth.

Wizzardman
2009-09-01, 01:14 AM
Oh, god. I wish I still had my original notes from this game. Unfortunately, I lost them in a computer transfer. It also partially doesn't count, as I did die, but there was some miraculous survival involved, so I'm including it anyway.

Here goes nothing:
---------------------------------
Game: Dark Heresy

So, final session of the game. The PCs (our Priestess and fearless leader, lovely both in and out of game, who constantly lusted after the God-Emperor (only in-game, I hope); our crazy Psyker, Pierin, the Cleric's best friend, and amazingly entertaining in and of himself; our Techpriest, Xerxes, who'd gone a bit corrupt over the years, and had this tendency to eat the flesh of his enemies; our Guardsman, Bojangles, whose amazing luck and ability to hit things with a rocket launcher never ceased to amaze me; and myself, Nihilius "Bones" Guilliman (thank you, random name generator), a grizzled old (and rather dumb) Arbiter with a love of filling things with many, many bullets) had just absolutely failed (through only some fault of our own) our mission to recover Eldar thing-gummies from a mining site, resulting in the deaths-by-psyker-powers-and-hallucinogen-grenades of dozens of workers and loyal cops, and had returned to our Inquisitor to receive reprimand.

So, being the Arbitor, the second in command, and the man officially in command of the part of the mission that led to all those deaths, I returned to the Inquisitor in disgrace. He stripped me of my acolyte position, officially "retired" me, and ordered the rest of them on unpaid leave until he had calmed down some.

The Priestess, the Psyker, and I all left the briefing room, as ordered, and began marching back to our tiny little ship, the better to drop me off at the nearest planet. The Guardsman and the Techpriest stayed behind, saying that they had important information to discuss with the Inquisitor. Since they had been communicating a lot in the last mission, and they had always been our loyal companions (even with the flesh eating), we paid no heed to it.

We got about thirty feet down the hallway before the shooting started.

We rushed back to the briefing room. The security systems had gone on lockdown. Sirens were blaring throughout the ship. We could hear yelling in the compartment beyond. Our Priestess, ever the melee-specialist, pulled forth her monofilament chainsword, and began hacking her way into the room, cutting carefully through the Inquisitor's massive door.

And then the ship's intercom activated. We could hear screaming in the background--the Inquisitor's voice, howling in rage, and the sound of the Techpriest's various weaponry. And then Bojangles started talking.

"[Priestess character's] acolyte team has attacked the Inquisitor! Kill them at any cost!"

The Psyker twitched at every word. Some sort of foul Warp-power had accompanied Bojangle's speech; though we were scarcely affected, our Psyker immediately reported that this speech would have some foul influence on the unprotected crew, corrupting their righteous fury, and making negotiation or surrender suicidal.

Seconds later, our Priestess cut the door the rest of the way down, revealing the grizzly scene inside. We were too late; as we watched, Techpriest Xerxes pulled two krak (anti-armor) grenades forth from his robes, and, using his augmented bits, slammed them hard onto the Inquisitor's face, killing him instantly. Bojangles stood, facing the door, weapon ready and waiting for us. Both Xerxes and Bojangles were marked with symbols of the warp; we could practically feel the power of Chaos they now represented.

Fortunately, by the God-Emperor, we were ready for them, too. Psyker Pierin slammed Bojangles hard with a force-choke equivalent power, while our lovely Priestess ripped him to shreds with her chainsword. I pulled free both of my autopistols, and emptied two clips of manstopper rounds straight into Xerxes face. We were rolling like we were on fire that night.

The fight was over in seconds, but the damage had been done. There was no way we could get out of their peacefully, so we grabbed the Inquisitor's rosette (which he used to control the ship), and bid a hasty retreat, running for our ship.

We got about five feet before a squad of twenty Inquisitorial Stormtroopers in Carapace armor came flying around the corner.

And this is where our survival became truly amazing.

An important thing to remember about Dark Heresy is that it has a very strict jamming system. Now, naturally, some weapons are better about not jamming than others; lasweapons, for example, rarely ever jam. Even seeing one out of twenty jam is unusual. And, as befits Inquisitorial Stormtroopers, they were each carrying Hellguns, a form of suped-up lasgun.

And fully half of their guns jammed in the first round. The rest just plain missed.

Naturally, we shot down enough of them to clear a path, and then split, again running for the ship. They chased us, still missing on all but a scant few shots. We ran into more enemies--ship's security and midshipmen, all wielding lasguns, and all after us due to Bojangles' sorcerous command. And still more jammings occurred. We were watching our GM's dice; it was amazing. If they weren't the same dice he always used, we would have sworn they were loaded. Truly, the God-Emperor himself was with us on this day.

We make it to the hanger bay, bust our way through, and charge towards our ship, with dozens of men hot on our heels. Naturally, our ship is guarded. Thanks to the power of our psyker, and a few good shots from my autopistols, both guards are easily taken care of.

Unfortunately, while choking out the guards, our Psyker rolls Perils of the Warp. For those unfamiliar with Dark Heresy, Perils of the Warp indicates that a random unnatural event or effect occurs in the area surrounding the psychic power just used. Most of these Warp Effects are fairly minor, involving temperature drops or floating bubbles; a good quarter of them, however, are incredibly dangerous, ranging from chaos effects to the Psyker being pulled into the Warp and devoured by demons. And, since the Perils only affect a small area, the only people to be affected by his roll would be the Psyker, the Priestess, and myself.

Our Psyker rolls on the Perils table. We get a rage effect, where all people in the area must make a willpower test or immediately spend the next round charging into melee against the nearest enemy. Our Psyker made the willpower save; both the Priestess and myself failed it.

We all knew what would happen if we charged back, even for a single turn; the hordes behind us would catch up, and, no matter what we did, we would eventually be torn to pieces by our former comrades and shipmates. Nevertheless, as by the rules, the Priestess and I turned around, and started to charge towards the enrushing foes.

Psyker Perin, in desperation, turned to the one psychic power that had never failed us (except on the last mission, where it led to most of the deaths, but that's another problem): Fear. He figured it might knock our opponents off their game, or scare them enough to give us a chance to run.

He rolled on the Fear power table, to see how much effect it would have. And, by sheer luck, rolled as high as he could roll--to the exact power level that had killed so many people in our final real mission. The point where whoever sees the Psyker's face is driven so far into insanity that they immediately start shooting at the nearest person, friend or foe, and continue for quite a long time indeed.

And, because of Perils of the Warp, the Priestess and I were facing away from the Psyker, and were just a scant thirty feet from the crowd. Just far enough away that all aforementioned crewmembers started shooting each other, and not us. Truly, the God-Emperor was with us on this day.

The Priestess and I snapped out of our rage. We turned back around, safe in the knowledge that the Psyker's power only lasted for a single turn, and then immediately jumped aboard our ship, and blasted off. We made it.

And then the ship's batteries came online, and blew us to kingdom come.

But it doesn't end there. Naturally, we remaining players started packing up, sighing, and staring forlornly at our character sheets.

And then I noticed something. An item, on my sheet, that I had never used before. A Talisman (I forget the proper name)--an article of faith, in this case a bolter shell casing from a DeathWatch boltgun, that would, on GM's permission, allow a character to be exempt from an unfortunate fate that befell his fellows. Naturally, as I'd rather risk death by space than guaranteed death by laser, I immediately pointed this out to the GM, and after some rules clarification, he said he would allow me to be saved by this item.

The Priestess' player, seeing a chance, immediately looked at her character sheet. She had one, too. Psyker Pieren's player looked down at the sheet for her character, but Pieren, the poor Psyker, did not.

The GM grinned his foulest grin. He gazed at us for a few seconds, and then, laughing, told us that, fine, we had earned the Emperor's favor. We deserved something from the Talismans we carried. And, he promised, we would survive. Two of us would, that is; after all, there were only two Talismans, and some kind of price had to be paid. And it would be up to us, the players, to decide amongst ourselves who would live and who would die.

I looked back at the GM, and grinned. I knew the heart of "Bones" Guilliman. I knew exactly what he would do.

"Bones stands up, inside the ship, and, screaming "FOR THE EMPEROR," dives headfirst into the laser beam... or whatever he needs to do to save the other two."

The players of Pieren and the Priestess cheered.

Now, of course, the GM couldn't let me get away that easy. He insisted that the other two had survived purely through luck, and that, given the nasty warp-sorcery going on in the ship behind us, my soul was immediately sucked into the warp and eaten by a demon. Pieren and the Priestess snuck off and retired on a Pleasure World, using my old autogun (machine gun) to mark my empty gravesite, and my old autopistols as ways to remember me.

But I don't care what he said. I know, in my heart, that this is what Bones would have wanted. That this is exactly how Bones deserved to die.


And, one final, only somewhat related note: not long before this writing, my GM talked to me by GTalk, and informed me that, for the lulz, he'd decided to replicate our Dark Heresy characters in Sims 3. And that, as befitting poor, unlucky old Bones, my character's replicant had been the first to find one of the many myriad ways to die horrible.

And Death, in game, refused to take him. Death, in fact, insisted that his antics were too funny to end, and that the world deserved for Bones to live.

Apparently, even other games seem to be on Bones' side.

Alysar
2009-09-01, 01:17 AM
I don't know if this counts, but my halfling was swallowed on two different occasions. Once by a Quetzalcoatlus (winged dinosaur) and once by a demon morphed into a hydra.

Galileo
2009-09-01, 03:15 AM
One of my characters once ended up bearing witness to a massive, all-out showdown between Tiamat and Bahumet. Rather than staying far away - the sensible thing that my GM presumed we do - my character couldn't just *sit* there. So he pulled out a scroll of teleport, summoned a flying mount, and ported himself into the fray... the fray between gods.

(I know, I know, okay? But my character was lawful good-ish -- well, except for being a necromancer, long story that -- and an overachiever to boot. And it seemed like the heroic sort of thing to do, okay? You don't just sit around and let a freaking god of goodness and light die right in front of you - not without at least trying to do something.)

Basically, the GM had mercy on me; when I (naturally) failed against Tiamat's Fear DC, he had me pass out, and a passing paladin managed to save me.

Strange. My campaign is just getting ready for its last battle, and Tiamat and Bahamut are going to be duking it out above us. I'm a paladin.

Lilienthal
2009-09-01, 04:14 AM
What I want is a post with links to all your cool stories :smalltongue:. I'd missed this one somehow, and it's great.

Link. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6401889&postcount=15)

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boomwolf
2009-09-01, 04:56 AM
Level 4 fighter, got into a fight with 3 ghouls, the entire party unable to reach him or give any help.
We were using a fumble table that may it possible to injure yourself or nearby allies.

Lost initiative, all 3 ghouls were first.
Ghoul 1 fumbles, hit ghoul 3.
Ghoul 2 fumbles, hit ghoul 1.
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hits ghoul 1, killing him.
Fighter hits ghoul 2.
Ghoul 2 misses
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hit himself and dies.
Fighter crit-hit ghoul 2, killing him.

The fight was made outside the eyes of the other players (that how we did it, you don't see things if your character isn't there.)
When they finally got to him, thinking he is dead and to be looted, they were very surprised to see him sitting on three dead ghouls, claiming him killed them all.

Milskidasith
2009-09-01, 06:39 AM
Level 4 fighter, got into a fight with 3 ghouls, the entire party unable to reach him or give any help.
We were using a fumble table that may it possible to injure yourself or nearby allies.

Lost initiative, all 3 ghouls were first.
Ghoul 1 fumbles, hit ghoul 3.
Ghoul 2 fumbles, hit ghoul 1.
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hits ghoul 1, killing him.
Fighter hits ghoul 2.
Ghoul 2 misses
Ghoul 3 fumbles, crit-hit himself and dies.
Fighter crit-hit ghoul 2, killing him.

The fight was made outside the eyes of the other players (that how we did it, you don't see things if your character isn't there.)
When they finally got to him, thinking he is dead and to be looted, they were very surprised to see him sitting on three dead ghouls, claiming him killed them all.

How is this a story of "not dying against near impossible odds?"

A level four fighter against three ghouls isn't particularly amazing; he can one shot each of them (if built decently), and the fortitude saves aren't hard to make (It's still mostly luck, but he should be fine with a good con stat).

I'm also confused as to why you were using fumble rolls, but to each his own. What's really weird is that you were critting undead. That just doesn't make sense.

boomwolf
2009-09-01, 12:24 PM
How is this a story of "not dying against near impossible odds?"

A level four fighter against three ghouls isn't particularly amazing; he can one shot each of them (if built decently), and the fortitude saves aren't hard to make (It's still mostly luck, but he should be fine with a good con stat).

I'm also confused as to why you were using fumble rolls, but to each his own. What's really weird is that you were critting undead. That just doesn't make sense.

It was our second game, we had no clue how things worked back then.

We had no idea about optimizing then too. (a fighter with 14 charisma....)

Saph
2009-09-01, 12:44 PM
I've posted this one before, but it was almost two years ago. It's good enough to reprint. :)

D&D 3.5 campaign. We were playing through the "Children of Gruumsh" adventure in the Forgotten Realms. Six-person party, all level 8, though only five were there for the final battle.

We were stuck in a demiplane temple with a one-way entrance, and our main goal by the time we reached the top floor was just to get out of there. The dracolich who ran the place agreed, on condition that three out of the five party members would be left behind to be sacrificed. We said no, and the battle kicked off.

It started okay for our team but started to go downhill as soon as the dracolich closed to melee range and started hitting with its full attacks. The cleric and the fighter were taken down in melee, the other wizard was knocked into negatives after his fire shield failed to get through the dragon's SR, and the bard was first paralysed then finished off with a full attack.

This just left me. The character I was playing at the time was a sun elf enchantress wizard/loremaster who really didn't like fights but kept on getting dragged into them. She wasn't very strong, was nervous in battles, had very few offensive spells and even fewer that worked on undead, but in her adventuring career she'd encountered a lot of dragons and had learned a bit about what worked against them and what didn't.

So I cast two greater mirror image spells and kept running. Each round I'd fly out of the dracolich's melee range, taking an AoO in the process, and take a shot at the dracolich with my orb of force wand, the only effective weapon I had. The dracolich would move in and attack me on its turn, splintering another image, then at the start of my turn my mirror images would regenerate, restoring the two images that I'd just lost, and I'd dodge away again. This went on for round after round, the two of us flying in circles round and round the room. In between the fighting me and the dracolich were having a conversation:

Dracolich: "Stand still so I can kill you, elf."
Me: "Um, what if you let us all go instead?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "I will make you the same offer as before. You and one of your friends can go."
Me: "What'll happen to the others?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "Their essence will be absorbed to power this temple."
Me: "No. I'm not leaving my friends behind."
Dracolich: "Then die."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Me: "I don't suppose there's any chance you're getting bored of hitting me yet?"
Dracolich: "I have existed here for centuries, staring at the blizzard and meditating. You couldn't conceive of what it would take to make me bored."
Me: "So that's a no, then?"
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, wand*
Dracolich: "I'm getting tired of chasing you, little elf."
Me: "Well, I'm not exactly enjoying this either."
Dracolich: "I'll give you one more chance. Stop fighting and you can leave here alive."
Me: "Not without the others."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away . . . wand runs out of charges. Uh oh.*

This was the point at which I realised I was probably dead. I had nothing left that could hurt the dracolich but my rapier, and with my 8 Strength and +3 BAB my chances of accomplishing anything with it were just about zero. I had some ranks in Use Magic Device from my Loremaster level, so instead I flew next to the cleric, grabbed his cure wand, and started trying to use it on the fallen party members, hopping from one to the other as the dragon chased me.

Dracolich: "You're wasting my time. Just give up. You can't win this."
Me: "I don't care. I won't let you hurt them.
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "Let me make you a new offer. If you surrender and let me kill you, I'll let the others go free."
Me: "You know, a lot of people tell me I'm naive . . . but even I'm not gullible enough to fall for that one."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "You're just putting off the inevitable. Stand still and let me kill you."
Me: "No."
*attack, splinter, regenerate, dodge away, try to use wand*
Dracolich: "I'm tired of this. I'm not going to chase you anymore. But I think I've figured out what will work instead." *stops, lands, and stands over the cleric, fighter, and evoker.* "Come here by the time I reach zero, or I start killing them. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . ."

It was one of those moments where you have the feeling that your luck's finally run out. I was just about to shout "No!" when the bard appeared from behind, charging. My last use of the wand had healed him and he attacked the dracolich from behind, almost dying in the process but taking away its last few HP and killing it.

It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

- Saph

Umael
2009-09-01, 01:22 PM
It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

Okay, that was epic.

Is your avatar based on that PC?

Lycan 01
2009-09-01, 01:56 PM
-instert Dark Heresy story that puts all of mine and every one I will ever run to shame-

This story was made of all kinds of awesomeness. :smallbiggrin:

I just remembered one cool Call of Cthulhu story, but I've got to figure out how best to tell it... It involved multiple near deaths, with one character nearly having his face pulled off, one only surviving an instant death by a lucky jump roll, and another being saved from a fate worse than death by a sucker punch. I'll post it later when I have an hour to kill, because it's gonna take me awhile to write it out... :smalltongue:

Saph
2009-09-01, 02:01 PM
Okay, that was epic.

Is your avatar based on that PC?

Pretty much! It's actually Belldandy from Ah My Goddess, but the personalities are similar enough.

I played the character from levels 2 up to 12 over several years, and she survived so many TPKs that by the end the other players were making jokes about worshipping her as a deity. :P

Helinon
2009-09-27, 09:41 PM
well this really isn't a close to death story, more along the opposite. when you see us and what we're up against you'd think we'd die or at least have some sort of fight. no such luck with us. still want to hear it? or is it not appropriate for the thread?

lostsole31
2009-10-26, 02:50 AM
Well, I don't know about the game ... but I've been to France.

Amazingly, I survived.

IonDragon
2009-10-26, 04:52 AM
My favorite survival story to date:

Took place in a homebrew Cyberpunk style setting. I was playing a Powered Armor Heavy Weapons Specialist, and the party was hidden or disguised and trying to meet the person who had a mark on our heads. The party is ambushed so I come out of hiding and begin firing willy-nilly with explosive cannon shells at where the attacks seem to be coming from (Our attacker was wearing a futuristic invisibility cloak). Combat ensues. The party roboticist deploys seeker drones to find the attacker so I can hit him accurately. He looses a drone (one of his expensive ones) but the remaining ones find our attacker. I'm able to corner him, and the party diplomat comes up with an armed grenade for good measure. The attacker arms the explosive built into his gun, drops it and runs away. His gun sets off a chain reaction detonating not only the grenade the diplomat was holding, but the diplomat's entire arsenal (his only weapons were grenades) causing a massive explosion.

When following the ambusher, I'd used my Powered Armor's jets to get to a nearby roof to see where he'd gone. Because of the cover the roof provided me, I took 0 damage (my armor required major repairs however).

This is a close call story because if it were not for the cover the building provided, it would have doubled the damage I'd taken which would have killed me instantly.

Shardan
2009-10-26, 02:30 PM
My favorite one, unfortunately, wasn't D&D but was from a D20 Star Wars game. My smuggler (scoundrel class) had reluctantly been awakened to the force and had barely had any training. (the rest of the party was Jedi from the start, of course) and we ended up in a light saber fight with three sith. The other two were beating their opponents fairly but I was losing horribly. I was another hit from death and had not landed a single hit against my opponent. In desperation, I drew my trusty old blaster with one half action and with the other, fired it on the sith, point blank..... natural 20. damage went past HP (which was just a padding) and straight to vitality (which is your actual bodily damage) and killed him in one shot. The others finished their fights while I healed myself what little i could. After their fights were over the BBEG struck me from behind to crit me and leave me almost dead. Then he gave his patented 'evil speech' to the Jedi and (due to overwhelming forces) captured them. But my little scoundrel had used an illusion to fake a 'become one with the forces' death and used force stealth to hide under a table and escape capture. :D

(for future note, I have decided that my character is invincible as long as he has a table to hide under because that was the third or fourth time he used a table to escape certain death)
Of course I also disarmed a caught and disarmed a thermal detonator thrown at me without even losing my place in my rant at the guy that threw it and escaped another BBEG's death trap before he could even finish his speech.

KitsuneKionchi
2009-10-26, 02:39 PM
The two main damage dealers in our party was a sneak attacking rogue and a fire mage. We were pitted against bronze golems in a room with a gas leak and an occasional ignition that caused the entire room to explode and heal the golems.

I, the fire mage, just shapechanged into a fire elemental and floated above the gas leak to prevent the healing.

Pika...
2009-10-26, 02:41 PM
The two main damage dealers in our party was a sneak attacking rogue and a fire mage. We were pitted against bronze golems in a room with a gas leak and an occasional ignition that caused the entire room to explode and heal the golems.

I, the fire mage, just shapechanged into a fire elemental and floated above the gas leak to prevent the healing.

That room was awesomely designed. Props to your DM.

Did he actually plan for you to survive that?

Yukitsu
2009-10-26, 03:27 PM
Me: "The two guards around the gate are dead now right?"
DM: "Correct."
Me: "I'll get my summoned creatures to close the gates, then sovereign glue it shut."
DM: "All right."
*Hit and run combats against the people stuck in the keep.*
DM: "By now they've mobilized their bigger guns. You see a cleric cast holy word."
"Me: "My contingency goes off, and I'm encased in a bubble of force. (custom 1 round duration resilient sphere.)"
DM: "OK. your bubble wears off, and you're hit by a holy word from another cleric."
Me: "Hmm. I have 9 hit dice, and they are level 15 from what I can tell."
DM: "Correct. While you're stunned, they dimension lock your area for good measure."
Me: "I'll manifest astral construct, and have it bullrush me off the wall, then drag me out of their line of sight."
DM: "They try to pursue you, but first have to do something to unfuze the door."
Another player: "Aren't evil outsiders plane shifted to their home dimension when they are holy worded?"
DM: ...
Me: ...
Another player: Where are you from anyway?
Me: Faerun.

Everyone thought I was pretty much automatically boned when holy word came out, but the DM did admit he wasn't exactly sure he could have killed me before I got to safety, even had I not been force shifted to Faerun.

Alysar
2009-10-26, 04:07 PM
Ok, this happened since my last post. I'm in a semi-regular Iron Heroes game. I play a Harrier (a fighter that relies on speed and dexterity). The inn that we were in was being attacked by a small army.

The evil wizard running the show had until midnight when the evil spirits would come to claim the 100 souls that he was supposed to have sacrificed. We just needed to hold him off until then.

The wizard decided to send in his big guns. A giant flaming wooden construct that fed off of people my sticking them in its chest.

To give you a picture, we were using standard sized miniatures and the construct was represented by a 8-inch tall Johnny Storm action figure. It was explained to us that this was to scale.

I got the idea that we might be able to trip the thing, so I had sent one of the lackey to get the longest length of chain they had in the place. When it had bashed through the front wall, I ran out and (successfully!) flung the chain around one of its legs while being attacked by one of the soldiers.

At this point the wizard cast a mind affecting spell which required us to roll a save every round or pass out. I made my first save.

I was at less than five HP at this point.

Suddenly, Johnny Storm headed into the inn through the hole in the wall (the inn was a walled courtyard with several buildings inside). I held on, and found myself dragged along behind it. We passed close enough to some more PCs for them to grab on. So there we were, being dragged behind the Wicker Man like a bunch of ewoks behind an AT-XT. We were definitely slowing it down enough so that it couldn't get to the civilians in the inn. It helped that the NPC spiritualist that we had with us speeded up time so that we didn't have to hold it off the entire 20 minutes till midnight.

It was at this point I was thrown into some crates and passed out.

Did I mention I was level 2 at the time?

Unscrewed
2009-10-26, 04:48 PM
Well, my character from an Genius: The Transgression chronicle (A conspiracy theorist college student) escaped dying by the skin of his teeth on at least 4 separate occasions. Although none were as dramatic as the examples here, it gets somewhat more impressive when you take into account he A) was one of the only characters in the group who didn't use super-science weapons or armor, B) was decent (not great) at combat, and C) was the only character from the original party that made it to the end of the chronicle without dying.

Over the course of the Chronicle, he:

1) Charged a pair of highly trained ninja assassins while badly wounded...twice.

2) Went toe-to-toe with a car-sized killer robot, again while wounded.

3) Charged the main villain and his bodyguards with nothing but a sword.

Prak
2009-10-26, 05:20 PM
I remember a fight against a young adult blue dragon and 6 drow slaves. Our party was about 4th level and definitely out classed. However I took leadership position (I was playing an elf cleric of Tamara) and with some team work (and a few lucky rolls) we were winning the fight. The blue dragon was getting torqued off that he was losing minions.

Blue: "Surrender!"
Me: "What, you wish to surrender to us? Very well, we'll gladly accept!"
GM: "Do you actually say that?"
Me: "Yeah well he offered."

This obviously insulted the blue dragon and he dove at me, pinning me to the ground with only 3 hit points to my name. I was pretty sure next round I'd be dragon kibble so on my "last" turn I tried casting a spell (while pinned) called Balor's Nimbus (I think). Succeeded the Concentration check and the spell gave me an aura of fire, causing fire damage to anything in graple with me. Well I maxed out the damage dice and brought the young blue dragon to single digit hit points as well. He was about to bite my head off when he realized that all his drow slaves were defeated and he was surrounded by the remaining party, weapons drawn on him.

The dragon took a double move to make a hastey retreat :smallbiggrin:
And I lived to heal another day.

If I were dm, the dragon would have surrendered to you guys after that...

root9125
2009-10-26, 05:26 PM
Well, I have a few things, I guess. My party is a bit on the Evil side, and a LOT on the Chaotic side, so you can imagine most of it is party-caused.

We're fighting an illithid, when it is a level appropriate fight (Party Level 7), and he's got our Orc Fighter (named Krusk, because who doesn't love Krusk?) dominated, because his Will is +0... So, one round later, he would full-round power-attack smack the closest person for 50 damage (which was my Warmage with 39 hit points). Not to mention our party's Assassin (NOT dominated, so god only knows why he did this) was studying ME for a death attack that would be available next round.

So we all know I've got one round to live. I intentionally fail a will save to give a fireball to our Spellthief, and shoot one at the illithid myself. He's down to ~23 hp, assuming average damage rolls (yes, metagaming. I'm sorry, I DM myself and therefore know many stats...) after my fireball. The spellthief throws his, and rolls almost max damage. So, the thing's unconscious and bleeding, floating 30 feet up. Well, dominate is, apparently, an until-death spell. So, the thing HAS to die from the 3d6 falling damage... It does. Barely.

Win.

holywhippet
2009-10-26, 10:35 PM
This... This is epic. What is the name of the game you were playing? I must find a copy...

I'm thinking he's talking about the Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

Merk
2009-10-26, 11:30 PM
It was the most epic D&D battle we've ever had. I really thought my character was going to die. Having it turned around at the last minute was incredibly cool.

- Saph

That's amazing. I wish I could create encounters as dramatic as that.

Kaun
2009-10-27, 12:11 AM
I have posted this else where before but i figured i would chuck it in here for those who had missed it.



So i am running my ongoing 4th ed camp last night and my 5 players (lvl 7 - 8 Wiz, Bard, 2 blade ranger, Shamy and infernal warlock) have just battled there way through a temple carved out of the side of an active volcano chock full of man eating orc fanatic nut jobs. Then onto a fast paced battle with a young red dragon on a cliff outcrop jutting over the magma core of the volcano with more of those orc crazy's springing out of the wood work just to make things difficult.

Anyway they have the dragon down to only a few hp and its decided that its "carving through the party with savage claws" tactic, tho affective may need a slight re-assessing due to its hp now being under 20 after a few especially harsh attacks recently landed on it. So it takes to the air hoping for a breath weapon recharge and makes use of its reach of 2 to keep the massive damaging ranger out of the game... but no sooner has it got air born the bard lands a vicious mockery crit and knocks it into the negative hps.
So it comes tumbling back to earth and the bard, warlock and ranger are all sitting in the prime position for a good ol' squishing. The bard and ranger both deftly roll out of the way but the Warlock is not so fortunate, and the damage received is enough to put him also onto negative hps.

So as he realizes this and starts to look a bit glum one of the other player points out to him that if the dragon died wouldn't his boon have gone off? Turns out that with boon bonus hp he was left with exactly 1hp, just enough to scrape himself of the floor (due to the party's healing being completely exhausted at this point) and beat a hasty retreat out of there.

Anyway it made me laugh so i figured it was worth sharing, some times there is no better comedy then what the randomness of the dice provides.

Darkameoba
2009-10-27, 01:24 AM
okay, so this is probably my favorite "you didnt die?" story.

the setting was generic fantasy, the system was 3.5. we were making our way through a valley and my party had sent me (a dwarf fighter with 3 wisdom, yeah, thats right, 3 wisdom) to walk along the top edge of the valley and keep watch for these giant owls that kept harassing us in the night (remember, 3 wisdom) anyway, here we are walking along this valley when we get attacked by orcs, now i easily dispatch the 2 orcs that i encounter on the top of the valley and look down to see my party getting rocked by 6 other orcs. now my dwarf not being one to think things through said "i need to get down there, but how?" looked at the corpse of one of the orcs and thought "that would make a great sled". Well he took one of the orc corpses, laid it on its stomach, pulled its arms up like reigns and chugged a heroism potion (gave temp HP) and then sorta shuffled the corpse off the edge riding on its back, holding its arms.

the cliff was about 200ft tall with a pretty steep incline but to my credit i made every balance check..till the last one, i botched, fell off the corpse, rolled a nat 20 ont he tumble, rolled expertly next to 2 orcs, killed them both with a cleave, then passed out as the potion wore off. everyone was surprised that i survived a 200ft ride on the back of a orc down a steep cliff. (oh yeah, before i jumped off the cliff on the orc i had 3 hp left.)

Helinon
2009-10-27, 10:17 AM
so me and my freinds are in an icy tunnel under a mountain. we are all overpowered(as in one of us is a rakshasas, one is a half dragon and the other is a were tiger) so our DM decides to mix things up and have us face a sleeping adult white dragon. even with is being overpwered, we would have a tough fight on our hands with one of us possibly dieing. However, we decinded that the were tiger, who was a rouge, should sneak up to the sleeping dragon in hybrid form and sneak attack it with a greataxe. it hit and we killed it in one hit. our Dm was like,'.........What......The.....crap?!? You can't coup de grace a dragon!' we were all just plain amazed that it worked. Then he dropped the bomb that the otherdragon would be along soo to protect the EGGS. We felt our luck ran out and left with the corpse, magic item that shrinks stuff, and the eggs, and just as we got to the desert on the other side of the mountains, the other dragon gave up, just a mile behind us.